


This Dark Descent Part Two- The Anonymous Acronym

by Alice_Writes_Stuff



Series: This Dark Descent [2]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Canonical Character Death, Carnivals, Child Abuse, Hospitals, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26472685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alice_Writes_Stuff/pseuds/Alice_Writes_Stuff
Summary: (A HDM/ ASOUE AU.) With the Baudelaire siblings now enrolled in a rather dismal boarding school, one would expect their lives to become relatively simple now, with boring teachers, unpleasant classmates and gross cafeteria food marking the extent of their problems. Of course, anyone who truly expects this to happen has not been paying attention. Before long, the Baudelaires' past will catch up with them, bringing deceit, kidnapping and an exhausting exercise programme into their miserable lives.Escaping the sinister Count Olaf's schemes, however, is just the beginning of another string of miserable misadventures, which take them from a glamorous apartment in the City,  to numerous vastly frightening destinations in the Hinterlands- culminating in more deceit, more kidnapping and another devastating fire.This time, though, the siblings are concerned about more than just the Count, his cohorts and his scarlet salamander. A mystery lies out in the Hinterlands- three mysterious letters that may help the Baudelaires find the answers they seek. So why does every lead seem to lead them nowhere? Why do false alarms and red herrings seem to lurk around every corner? Perhaps some answers simply aren't worth finding...
Relationships: Count Olaf/Esmé Squalor, Duncan Quagmire & Isadora Quagmire, Isadora Quagmire/Carmelita Spats, Klaus Baudelaire & Sunny Baudelaire & Violet Baudelaire, Klaus Baudelaire/Duncan Quagmire
Series: This Dark Descent [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1607032
Comments: 23
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter One: In Which The Baudelaires Make New Friends- And Enemies- At School

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter: Parts of this chapter deal with (rather mild, but still present nonetheless) implications that one of the main characters is potentially being groomed by an adult authority figure. The same main character is later approached by another adult. While nothing about the intentions of these men is made explicit, I thought I should let you guys know, to be on the safe side.

Chapter One: In Which The Baudelaires Make New Friends- And Enemies- At School

Violet

“I feel like we’ve been sitting on this bench for ages,” Violet muttered. “Sunny’s starting to look less like a baby, and more like a toddler.”

“Spurt,” Sunny replied, by which she meant, _I think we’ve all grown a bit since our misery began._

She was right, of course, though Violet didn’t feel much taller. She did feel a lot older, though, so that probably counted for something.

Just as it seemed like they would be waiting forever, a girl slightly younger than Klaus came skipping up to them. She wore a bright pink dress, and had curly red hair, which was styled into Shirley Temple-esque ringlets. Her dæmon, currently in the form of a bright blue hummingbird, flitted about her head.

“Hello, cake-sniffers!” she declared.

“Hello, um…” Violet trailed off, not quite sure what the girl meant by “cake-sniffer.”

“Um, um,” the girl mocked. “Are you a blithering idiot? Everyone knows I’m Carmelita Spats, and this is Ginger.”

“Ginger?” Violet asked, stifling a smile.

“That’s how I _know_ you’re a cake-sniffer! If you weren’t, you’d know that he’s actually named after Ginger Rogers, the actress.”

“Good to know,” Violet replied. “Anyway, I’m Violet Baudelaire, and these are my siblings, Klaus and Sunny- and this is Prospero, Lizzie and Oliver.”

“What does cake-sniffer mean?” Klaus asked.

“It means you’re stupid cake-sniffers, but I’m the most special girl in the whole school.” She pointed to the door beside them. “This is Vice Principal Nero’s office- he’s a genius, and he likes me best. In fact, I don’t even have to wear a uniform, because I’m too adorable. Come on!”

Violet frowned, not sure if she liked the sound of that. Sure, all teachers had their favourite students- kids that they enjoyed teaching because they were polite, or engaged with the material well. But there was a huge difference, Violet thought, between that and what Carmelita had just described.

As they continued their tour, Violet’s sense of unease about her new school continued to grow. Everywhere she and her siblings went, students stared at them.

“People are looking at us,” Klaus said after a while.

“It’s probably because we’re new,” Violet replied, trying to reassure him.

“Actually, it’s because your home was destroyed in a fire,” Carmelita corrected.

They walked out onto the athletic field, which was when Violet and her siblings first learned the motto of their new school was. And once they learned what it meant, they knew at once why the story of their time here wouldn't truly have a happy ending- the same way no story can ever truly have a happy ending.

“This is the athletic field,” Carmelita said, holding her arms out to indicate the barren place. “The gym teacher is coaching an away game at the moment, so I get to make people do jumping jacks whenever I want!”

“Okay, where exactly are you getting all of this authority from?” Violet asked.

“Haven’t you been listening? I’m the most special, most adorable little girl in the whole school- Vice Principal Nero told me so.”

“Right,” Violet said. She was about to say something more when Klaus spoke up.

“Memento mori?” he asked. “Is that the school motto?” Carmelita nodded.

“What does memento mori mean?” Violet asked.

“It means, remember you will die.”

Klaus

They went back inside, walking past a large oak door, a brass plate with the word “Library” underneath the ornate glass window.

“I don’t know what that room’s like- I never go in there. It smells all dusty and icky, and the lady who works there is mean.”

“It’s a library,” Klaus pointed out. “It probably smells like old books, which is a very pleasant smell.”

“Only a cake-sniffer would think that!” Carmelita snapped.

A woman came out of the library then, carrying a large stack of books. She was wearing a yellow blouse and a black skirt, and her dark red hair was arranged in a neat bun. Klaus couldn't see what exactly her dæmon was from here, though he could see something small flitting about her head.

“Oh, hello! You must be the new students I’ve heard so much about- the Baudelaires, right?” she asked. She didn’t seem especially mean, and Klaus suspected that Carmelita just didn’t have a good impression of her.

“Of course she likes you three,” Carmelita scoffed. “Cake-sniffers always stick together.”

“Always a pleasure, Carmelita,” the librarian replied.

“A library is like an island in a vast sea of ignorance,” Klaus said, trying to get a closer look at her stack of books.

“Particularly if the library is tall and the surrounding area has been flooded,” she added. She smiled, and put the books on her head, walking back into the library. “Come visit!” she said, before the door closed.

“And finally,” Carmelita said, once their tour came full circle and they were back where they’d started. “We’re back at Vice Principal Nero’s office, where you were supposed to be ten minutes ago, so now you’re late!” She paused, like she was waiting for something.

"Thank you,” Klaus said.

“Thank you isn’t enough! It is traditional to give a special tour guide a special tip at the end!”

“A tip?” Klaus asked.

“Yes, a tip! Are you deaf and blind, cake-sniffer?”

“Here’s a tip,” Violet said. “If an older guy starts giving you way too many compliments, you kick him in the nuts and run the other way.”

“I asked for a tip, not an after school special,” Carmelita said, then knocked on the door. Her dæmon shifted into a fluffy, creamy white cat, leaping into her arms.

There was nothing pleasant about the man who answered Carmelita’s knock. His grey coat and purple waistcoat were wrinkled, his face was blotchy and red, and his hair stuck up all over the place. His dæmon, which was perched on his shoulder, was a small, green and yellow parrot.

“Who dares to interrupt a genius when he’s rehearsing?” he demanded.

“It’s the Baudelaires,” Carmelita said with a smirk. “They’re late for their appointment.”

“How dare you be late!” he barked, then looked at Carmelita. “Thank you for telling me, Carmelita. That’s a nice brooch, by the way,” he added.

“Thanks! The original owner really liked it!” she replied, then skipped away. Nero watched her go, seemingly oblivious to the way Violet was frowning at him.

“What a lovely girl,” he said. “Sweet as a butterscotch buttercup. She has two living parents.”

He ushered them into his messy office, pulled out a battered old violin and started to play. Klaus was reminded of something that his father had said once- there is nothing worse than the sound of someone who cannot play the violin, who insists on doing so anyway. Finally, he was done, and the Baudelaires stared at him in silence for a moment. He sighed.

“When you hear an incredible performance, it’s tradition to clap and cheer and yell Bravo!”

“B-bravo!” Klaus said, as he and Violet clapped awkwardly.

“Thank you, thank you very much. And welcome, new students, blah, blah, blah. My name is Vice Principal Nero, and my second-highest concern is that you uphold the strict academic standards here at Prufrock.”

“What’s your first highest concern?” Violet asked.

“My career as a violinist.” He paused for a moment. “I know all about you three- you’ve been sent from guardian to guardian, and adversity has always followed. Adversity means trouble, by the way.”

“In our case, adversity means Count Olaf,” Klaus replied. “He was the cause of all of our troubles.”

“In our case, adversity means Count Olaf!” Nero’s dæmon echoed.

“Here at Prufrock Preparatory School, there’ll be no blaming your own weaknesses on this Count Olaf person.” He walked over to an object which stood on a trolley in the corner, and whipped a cloth off of it, revealing a computer. “This is an advanced computer system, it cost an arm and a leg. I had the AV club programme it to recognise all the hallmarks of Count Olaf- from the one eyebrow to the tattoo on his ankle.”

Nero stepped in front of the machine, allowing it to register and process his facial features, before reaching a conclusion.

“ _This is not Count Olaf!”_

“We’ll park it outside the school all semester, and you’ll be safe as peas.”

“With all due respect, I’m not sure an advanced computer system will do us much good,” Violet said. “Olaf is usually in disguise.”

“ _Olaf is usually in disguise!”_ Nero’s dæmon mimicked. Klaus could see now why she took the form of a parrot.

“I shouldn't have bothered to explain,” Nero said. “Let’s move on- Prufrock Prep has a magnificent dormitory thanks to a generous grant from our founder, Sir Barrymore Feint. Inside, there is a huge living room and an ornate cage full of tropical birds who can land of your finger and learn your name.” He smiled. “Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“It sounds more than nice,” Klaus said. “It sounds better than any place we’ve stayed in a long time.”

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear you say that!” Nero replied. “Of course, you won’t get to see it much. In order to live in the dormitory, you must have a permission slip signed by a parent or guardian. Your parents are dead, and Mr. Poe tells me your guardians have either been killed or fired you.”

“Surely Mr. Poe could sign the form?” Violet suggested.

“ _Surely Mr. Poe could sign the form?”_ this time, Nero was the one doing the mimicking. “Surely he could not. He is neither your parent nor your guardian. He works at a bank. I’m afraid that you’ll have to live in a small, tin shack- at least until we get a new set of orphans, then you’ll be upgraded to a broom closet.”

“Why can’t you change the rules so that everyone lives in a dorm?” Violet asked.

“ _Why can’t you change the rules so that everyone lives in a dorm?”_ Nero mimicked. “Because I don’t want to, that’s why.” He grabbed a piece of paper from his desk and glanced over it. “Speaking of rules, if either of you are late to your classes, your hands will be tied beyond your back during meals and you’ll have to lean down and eat your food like a dog. Violet, you will be studying with Mr. Remora in Room One, and Klaus, you will be with Mrs. Bass in Room Two.”

“Which classroom is Sunny’s?” Violet asked.

“I told Mr. Poe that we would have room for a baby here- but not in a classroom. I’ve always wanted an administrative assistant, but there was never the budget for it. Now, though, I have Sunny.” He picked up his violin. “Off to your shack!” he ordered. “Genius needs his rehearsal time.”

Violet

The expression _to make a mountain out of a molehill_ simply means making a big deal out of a small deal. But when Violet and her siblings reached the shack that was to be their home for the time being, they soon realised that when Nero had described it, he had not been making a mountain out of a molehill- if anything, he was making a molehill out of a mountain.

“It’s very small,” Violet said. “Even for a shack.”

They pushed the door open, and found that the shack was even more dismal on the inside. There was no furniture, just three rectangular bales of hay. A collection of crabs ran all over the rest of the floorspace, and fungus dripped from the walls.

“Our shack has crabs!” Klaus exclaimed,. “And fungus!” He sat down on one of the bales, drawing up his feet so they weren’t on the floor. “This is ridiculous!”

“I know it’s a mess, but maybe we can fix it up,” Violet said.

“I don’t mean this shack, I mean this school! Orphans shouldn’t be punished for not having parents. And who ties people’s hands behind their backs to eat?”

“I know, but we have to think about the bigger picture,” Violet said, taking the slightly crumpled photo of their parents and guardians from her blazer pocket. “Our parents were a part of something- our guardians, too. It might be the reason why all these terrible things keep happening to us.”

“We’re not going to find out anything if we’re stuck here.”

“We won’t know that for sure until we’ve tried. We’re at school now, let’s see if we can learn anything.”

They started classes the following morning. Violet’s teacher, Mr. Remora, was a tall, dull-looking man with an equally dull voice. His dæmon was a small brown monkey, which sat on his desk all morning eating bananas.

“Good morning, class, including our latest orphan,” he said.

At once, all the other students in the class turned to stare at Violet, with a mixture of curiosity, pity and a rather unpleasant glee that didn’t bode well for the duration of her time here. Clearly, Carmelita wasn’t the only kid that was gonna make things difficult for them. Only one student gave her a genuine smile- a dark-haired boy who was about a year younger than her, whose dæmon was currently in the form of a jackdaw. Violet gave him a small smile in return, then turned her attention to the teacher.

“My name is Mr. Remora, and today for language arts, I will continue telling anecdotes from my own life that I find amusing. You’ll take notes, and there will be a test.”

He then told a long, boring story about one time he decided to get macaroni and cheese. Violet tried to pay attention to the story, but the teacher’s voice was so dull, and the story was so uninteresting, it was virtually impossible. Normally, she’d tie her hair up and try to think up some inventions, but today she ended up paying more attention to the boy who’d smiled at her earlier, who was now scribbling away in his notebook. She wasn’t sure why- up till now she’d not interacted with a lot of boys, and had been pretty apathetic to the whole idea of viewing them as anything other than friends. It was probably nothing to worry about, she thought, trying once again to focus on her teacher.

Klaus

Over in Classroom Two, Klaus was receiving a similar reception to the one Violet was getting across the corridor, though he didn’t know that at the time. His teacher, Mrs. Bass, was a short woman with glasses and a grey cardigan. Her dæmon was a pine marten, who sat on her shoulders.

“Good morning, children,” she announced. “May I have your undivided attention? That includes you too, Daniel. Now, I understand that we have a brand new orphan today.”

Everybody turned to look at Klaus, though only one gave him a genuine, welcoming smile- a girl about a year older than him, with long, dark brown hair and a raven dæmon. Klaus gave her a small smile in return, then tried to focus on his teacher.

“It must be difficult for you to measure how unhappy you are without your parents- but we’re gonna try. My name is Mrs. Bass, and we'll continue our lessons on the metric system by measuring various objects. Later we'll have a quiz. The first thing to measure is this jar of mayonnaise I found in my garage.”

Sunny

Sunny’s morning did not involve any boring teachers or staring pupils. Instead, she had to sit behind a large typewriter and type up letters for Vice Principal Nero. At first, it didn’t seem that bad. After all, she did know her letters, more or less. Klaus had taught her them before the fire. _A is for Apple, B is for Bear..._ She continued like that until she got to _E is for Elephant,_ when she had to stop and sing the song in her head instead. Not because she couldn't remember what F was supposed to stand for, but because elephants made her think of Papa, and the poem he used to recite to her. In the end, she managed to remind herself of her letters, and from there she could guess which key on the typewriter was which. Then she realised that other than hitting the buttons that had the letters on them, she didn’t actually know how to operate the typewriter, and had to learn. It really didn’t help that she couldn't spell anything, either- not even her own name. She wasn't sure if there was meant to be two Ns or one.

“Next letter!” Nero ordered. “ _Dear_ _Juilliard School of Music, I was confused by your restraining order of October 13th.”_

Sunny tried to type out the letter, trying to guess at how the words were spelt based on how they sounded. _Deer Julie-yard skool of mew-sic…_ It was a shame Klaus wasn’t here, he’d be able to tell her how to spell all of these words.

“Faster!” Nero shouted. “You type like a one-year-old!”

“Eno!” Sunny replied, by which she meant, _That’s because I am one, you asshole!_

“Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes- _Dear Juilliard School of Music, I was baffled by your restraining order of October the 13th. What did I do?”_

Carmelita

Carmelita sat on the grubby bleachers of Prufrock Prep, watching the people who were doing jumping jacks. She tapped her foot on the seat bellow her, liking the noise her tap shoe made when it clacked against the wood.

“You call those jumping jacks?!” she yelled into her megaphone. “I’ve seen better jumping jacks from old people!”

She set the megaphone down beside her. Ginger went to curl into her lap, and she patted his creamy fur. She frowned, knowing that he usually did that if she was feeling lonely. _I’m not lonely, though,_ she thought. _Just cause I’m sitting on my own on a bench shouting at people, that doesn’t mean I’m lonely._

“Hey, cake-sniffer!” she shouted. “You’re as ugly as something I found in my teeth recently!”

Setting the megaphone down again, she folded her arms. She’d thought that was a pretty good insult, and that saying it out loud might make her feel a little better. It didn’t, though.

“Hey there, little girl,” a voice said from behind her.

Carmelita frowned, and turned around. There was a guy behind the bleachers, looking through a gap in the wooden boards. He had one bushy grey eyebrow, bright grey eyes and his dæmon was a bright red lizard.

“Little girl?” she asked, not sure what else to say. What was the proper response to a grown-up speaking to you from behind the bleachers? She did know that she probably shouldn't speak to strangers in the first place, but it seemed too late to go back on that now. “I’m 4’7.”

“That’s a pretty brooch you have,” the man replied.

Carmelita smiled- Nero had told her the same thing earlier. In the back of her mind, she could hear what Violet Baudelaire had told her earlier about men giving her compliments, but she tried to ignore it. For one thing, the Baudelaires were cake-sniffing orphans, what they said wasn’t important, right? Plus, Violet had only said to run the other way if she was given _way too many_ compliments- this was only one, and it was about her brooch, not about her. So why did she want to tear the stupid thing off and throw it far away, where nobody could comment on it again?

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I like you,” he replied. “You aren’t an orphan, are you?”

“Do I _look_ like I live in a shack?” She shook her head. Unlike some students here, she did have parents. They maybe weren’t _perfect,_ and sure, they didn’t seem to like her very much a lot of the time, but at least she _had_ them.

“I see. In that case, meet me under the bleachers after school.”

She nodded, thinking that was probably the safest option for now. Whether she would actually go through with it, though, she wasn’t sure. A part of her knew that she should tell somebody that there was a random guy under the bleachers, but who would listen to her or believe her? Her friends might, but they also hadn’t seen him, and besides, they couldn't do anything about it. Nero might listen, but he also might not believe her. And none of the other teachers would be any help. Maybe Miss Caliban, the librarian? No, Miss Caliban didn’t like her, she’d made that pretty clear. No, there was nobody she could tell, she would have to deal with this on her own.

Violet

Finally it was lunchtime, and Violet and Klaus could collect Sunny from work and go to get their lunch.

“How was your day?” Klaus asked, as they entered the dining hall.

“I heard nothing but pointless stories.”

“That’s language arts- although, admittedly I wish I’d been put in that class instead, it feels like years since I’ve been told any stories, pointless or otherwise. Instead I spent the morning writing meaningless measurements.”

“That’s maths,” Violet replied. She looked down at Sunny, who was walking between the two of them, holding onto both their hands for support. “How was work?”

“Diff,” she said, by which she meant, _Actually it was kinda difficult- I had to operate a typewriter and try to write letters._

“We’ve been in class all day, and it feels like we haven’t actually learned anything,” Klaus said.

“To be fair, I don’t think anyone else learned anything either,” Violet replied. “Still, there may still be someone here who can answer all our questions.”

Just then, they reached the counter which ran along one side of the dining hall, where they were greeted by a tall, skinny man that they hadn’t seen since they’d left Lake Lachrymose.

“Hello!” he said. “I’m Larry, your… er… dinner person.”

“We know you,” Violet said, frowning.

“Well, of course- I work in the cafeteria.”

“That’s not what I mean- you were the waiter at Lake Lachrymose, you were dressed as a clown.”

“Perhaps you are thinking of another waiter- although, now that you mention it, I do think there’s something I have to give you.”

“What is it?” Klaus asked. “Does it have anything to do with our parents, or our guardians?”

“You’ll have all the answers you could possibly need once I give you…” He reached behind him to pull something out of his backpack, then frowned. “Wait, I’m sure it’s in here somewhere.”

He dumped the contents of the bag on the floor, and started rifling through them. His daemon helped, picking things up with her mouth and moving them out of the way. Violet noticed, now, that she took the form of a Yorkshire Terrier, something she hadn't noticed back at the Anxious Clown. She and her siblings waited patiently for him to find what he was looking for, when they were pushed out of place by Carmelita and a couple of her friends.

“Get out of my way- I deserve a heaping portion because I’m heapingly adorable.”

“No, you can wait in line just like everybody else, Carmelita.” While she may have a feeling that something wasn’t right about the way the redhead had spoken about and interacted with the vice principal, she also thought that Carmelita could do with being taken down a peg or two.

“No, I don’t have to. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. Vice Principal Nero likes me best, and there's a beef and bean burrito with a ribbon on it just for me.” Well, so much for that.

“This is my lunch that I brought from home,” Larry explained, holding the burrito in question up.

“Did you find the thing you were gonna give us?” Violet asked.

“Sorry, I have to look for something,” Larry replied, ignoring Carmelita and her requests for his lunch.

“What was it you were gonna give us, anyway?” Klaus asked.

“Um, macaroni and cheese, with boiled weiners!” Larry replied, scooping a portion of food onto each of the children’s plates.

Taking their trays, the Baudelaires looked around for a couple of spaces where they could sit. They looked around for a long time, because they didn’t know where exactly they should sit. Dining halls and cafeterias are confusing places, because they all have different rules, and being a new student in a new cafeteria is often confusing as a result. Normally, the Baudelaires would just sit with one of their friends, but of course they didn’t have any friends at this school yet.

It didn’t help that this wasn’t exactly a normal cafeteria- a few kids were sitting with their hands tied behind their backs, meaning they were forced to lean down to eat that food- so Nero hadn’t been exaggerating, that was a genuine rule in this stupid school.

“I hadn’t realised he was serious about that,” Klaus said.

“Hey, Baudelaires!” Carmelita called. “There’s a couple seats at my table, but I’m afraid that it’s a cake-sniffer free zone.” She set her tray down on the table and started to chant. “Cake-sniffing orphans in the Orphan Shack! Cake-sniffing orphans in the Orphan Shack!”

“Leave them alone, Carmelita- you’re the cake-sniffer, and nobody in their right mind would want to eat with you,” a boy snapped, cutting across her chanting. Violet turned, and saw that it was the dark-haired boy who’d smiled at her earlier in class.

“Come sit with us,” said a girl who was standing beside him. They looked very much alike, except that the girl’s hair was much longer. Violet smiled, and she and her siblings followed the two of them to an empty table. “You’ll have to forgive Carmelita- she’s so awful, Mrs. Bass is considering a life of crime.”

“My sister wrote a poem about her- well, she’s written a few, but that’s beside the point.”

“Shut up,” the girl muttered. Then she pulled a black notebook out of her pocket, flipped through a few pages and then read aloud from it. “ _I would rather eat a bowl of vampire_ _bats/ than spend an hour with Carmelita Spats.”_

“That’s a couplet,” Klaus said. “Ogden Nash uses them.”

“I know- I’ve read all of his work,” the girl replied. “I’m Isadora Quagmire, and this is my brother, Duncan.” She gestured to the dæmons who were perched on their shoulders. Isadora’s dæmon was currently in the shape of a squirrel, while Duncan’s was in the shape of a sparrow. “These are Shelley and Dorothy.”

“I’m Violet Baudelaire, and this is Klaus and Sunny,” Violet said. “And these are Prospero, Lizzie and Oliver. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Isadora said. Duncan smiled and nodded, though Violet noticed that he seemed to be paying just a little more attention to Klaus than to Violet or Sunny. “What do you guys like to do?” she asked, after a pause, like she wasn’t sure how else to continue the conversation.

“I like to invent- I’m pretty good at designing and building things,” Violet replied. “Klaus prefers reading, and Sunny likes biting things.”

“I like journalism,” Duncan said. “I had a portable typewriter, like the journalist Moxie Mallahan, but I lost it recently.” He frowned. “I’ve lost a lot of things, recently.”

“We both have,” Isadora added. “Anyway, that being said, I do hope you’re surviving the Orphan Shack.”

“It’s pretty awful so far,” Violet replied.

“We were living there until yesterday,” Isadora admitted.

“You guys are orphans too?” Violet asked.

“Yeah,” Isadora replied. “We lost our parents recently, in a terrible fire- and our brother, Quigley. We… we were triplets.”

“We’re sorry to hear that,” Violet said. “We lost our parents in a fire as well.”

“It’s not fair,” Klaus said. “One minute, you’re safe, and happy, and home, and the next, you’re in a shack full of crabs.”

“We could do something about the crabs,” Violet said, already pulling her ribbon out of her pocket. “How did you guys deal with them?”

“We taped metal to our shoes to be extra noisy- it scared the crabs, but it was exhausting to tap dance all the time.”

“Nobody likes tap dancing, except maybe Carmelita,” Isadora said, glancing over to where the younger girl was now sitting eating her lunch and (thankfully) leaving them alone for now.

“I can invent something less exhausting than tap shoes,” Violet said. “I’ll need materials, though- can everybody empty their pockets?”

They all did, producing a small pile of pens, notebooks- Duncan, it turned out, had a green one in the same style as Isadora's black one- and two spyglasses. More accurately, it was one and a half. Klaus held the one that had been recently returned to the Baudelaires by a mysterious lady disguised as a statue, and Isadora held another one- just a single, broken half.

“Where did you get that?” Klaus asked, looking from one spyglass to the other.

“We found it in the ruins of our parents’ home,” Isadora explained.

“Come on,” Violet said, leaving her tray and getting to her feet. “I think we all need to talk.”


	2. Chapter Two: In Which The Baudelaires And The Quagmires Get To Work

Chapter Two- In Which The Baudelaires And The Quagmires Get To Work

Klaus

They went to the Orphan Shack, and Klaus, Sunny, Duncan and Isadora sat down on the hay bales. Klaus sat on the middle bale, just a little closer to Duncan than to Isadora. He liked both triplets already, and appreciated the kind welcome they’d given him and his sisters- but there was something about Duncan in particular that drew him in.

For about a year or so, Klaus had been harbouring the suspicion that while he may like girls in theory, and respect them, he didn’t actually want to _date_ any of them, and he probably never would, even when he was Father’s age. Until now, though, he’d not met a boy that he actually _liked-_ and he wasn’t even entirely sure that he _liked_ Duncan Quagmire. How could he be, when they’d only just met?

“Where did you say you found that spyglass?” Violet asked, bringing Klaus out of his thoughts. She was attaching a lightbulb to the ceiling, and adjusting a series of ropes and pulleys she’d set up around the shack.

“We found it in the ashes of our parents’ home,” Isadora explained. “We’d never seen it before.”

“Ours was left in a picnic basket by our parents- it was like they wanted us to have it, like they were passing something down,” Klaus said, remembering the moment when he had first reached into that picnic basket and felt the cool brass cylinder of the spyglass.

“It can’t be a coincidence,” Violet said. “Two fires, two spyglasses- well, one and a half.”

“Give me a second,” Duncan said, pulling his dark green notebook out of his pocket. “I’m going to write this down.” As he scribbled down the key points of what they had discussed so far, his arm kept brushing against Klaus’s- though he didn’t make any moves to move it away.

“I… I think there’s more to the spyglass.” Klaus drew his spyglass from his pocket. “See, there’s all these dials.”

He turned a few of them absently, until a small beam of light was produced. It was not so different from the light beam that had helped him and Violet to set fire to a scarf belonging to one of their previous guardians, Aunt Josephine, so they could use it as a signal.

“You could light a fire with this,” he said. “Why would our parents have a device like that?”

“Why would our parents have the same device?” Isadora asked. “They must’ve known each other,” she realised.

“Then why don’t we know each other?” Violet asked. “It’s like they were hiding all this stuff.” She reached down, and picked up the bucket that Sunny had been working on. “Thanks, Sunny!”

“Maybe they were gonna tell us, but they never got the chance,” Duncan suggested. “Maybe they were hiding it for a reason.”

“Because it’s dangerous?” Isadora suggested.

“Maybe,” Klaus replied. “You two are absolutely sure that you’ve never heard of Count Olaf?”

“We’re absolutely sure,” Duncan said. “Although, since we’ve lost our parents, we’ve seen a lot of things that we can’t explain.”

“Us too,” Violet replied. “It has to be connected.” She attached the bucket, which now had several shapes cut into it, onto the ceiling. Then she switched the lever, and the device sprung to life. The lightbulb switched on, and the bucket rotated around, sending images of fish, ladybirds and even a bat spinning around the room. “That’s better- it’s scaring the crabs away, and it gives the place a little style.”

“When we were at our Aunt Josephine's house- she was our last legal guardian, it was a long story- there was a book that may have some answers. We never got to read it, though, because it got lost in a hurricane.”

“Did it look like this?” Duncan asked, showing Klaus a page in his green notebook. The illustration showed the same large black book that Klaus had spotted at the bottom of a box of other books in his former guardian’s house. He nodded. “Our last guardian had a copy, but she hid it under the bed after she lost her wife.”

“There has to be more copies,” Klaus said. “Those can’t be the only two in the whole world, that would be way too big a coincidence.”

“Do you think the library here might have one?” Violet asked.

“It’s worth a try,” Isadora said. “Come on, if we leave now we should get there before it closes.”

Violet

When they reached the library, they were surprised to find Carmelita Spats on her own, pacing in front of the closed door like a tiny pink guard, Ginger flying over her head in his hummingbird form.

“What are you doing here?” Isadora asked, crossing her arms.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Carmelita snapped, turning to face the group. Violet noticed that she didn’t attach her usual insult to the statement.

“Not really,” Isadora replied, taking a step closer to the smaller girl.

“Every time,” Duncan muttered. “They do this practically every time.”

“Loathing?” Sunny asked, by which she meant, _Why am I getting the feeling that this is just_ _covering up for something else?_

“You may be on to something there, Sunny,” Violet replied.

“I have something I need to speak to Miss Caliban about,” Carmelita said. “Not that that’s any of your business,” she added.

“What could you need to talk to Miss Caliban about?” Isadora asked. “You don’t even like to read, what could you want from a librarian?”

Before Carmelita could answer, the door opened, and the librarian, Miss Caliban, came out.

“What do you want now, Spats?” she said, in an exasperated tone which suggested she regularly clashed with Carmelita and was fed up with her.

“Nothing, it’s… it’s not important,” Carmelita replied, then turned on her heel and walked away.

“The Baudelaires, and the Quagmires!” Miss Caliban said, once she was gone. “How lovely to see you children! What can I help you with?”

“Are you still open?” Isadora asked.

Violet frowned at the librarian. She didn’t know what Carmelita had been planning on telling her, or how many times the younger girl had come to her with rudeness and insults, which had probably led to this animosity between them. Still, Carmelita had seemed pretty agitated by what she’d been planning to say, and dismissing her outright didn’t seem fair.

“I was just locking up,” Miss Caliban replied. “Ten minutes goes by so fast- I’m afraid you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“We can’t wait,” Duncan said. “We’re trying to find a book, it’s really important.”

“It might have the answers to all of our questions,” Klaus added.

“What’s the title?” Miss Caliban asked, turning back to the door and opening it.

“The Incomplete History Of Secret Organisations,” Klaus replied.

“Let me see what I can do,” she said, leading them all into the library.

The library was a large room, with tall rows of bookcases filled with more books than Violet had seen in a while. There was definitely more variety in the books than there had been in the Lucky Smells library, which had only had multiple copies of the same book.

“We only have a few minutes before Nero comes on his rounds,” Miss Caliban said, setting a small timer on a stack of books. “We’ll have to see if we can find this book quickly. You don’t happen to know its Dewey Decimal Number?”

“We don’t even know who wrote it,” Klaus admitted. “Or how you’d even begin to find it in the Dewey Decimal System.”

“That’s okay, that’s what I’m here for,” Miss Caliban replied.

She turned to a large filing cabinet, her dæmon fluttering over to sit on top of it. By now, Violet had guessed that it was a beetle of some kind, possibly a ladybird, though it was hard to know for sure.

“Now, let’s see.” She flipped through the files in one of the tiny drawers of the cabinet. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any book with that title.”

“That’s okay,” Violet said, though she was disappointed.

“Due to budget cuts, crumbling infrastructure, and the priorities of a certain vice principal, this library is becoming something of a crumbling infrastructure.” She sighed. “However, I do have some other books you might be interested in.” Miss Caliban picked up a stack of books from a trolley which was parked beside her. “There’s _The Incomplete History Of Mycology, The Incomplete History Of_ _Carto_ _graphy, The Incomplete History Of Anthropology,_ and _The Incomplete History Of History_ here.”

“Those all sound fascinating,” Violet began. “But…”

“I know,” the librarian replied. “In every library, there is a single book that can answer the question that burns like a fire in the mind.”

“Where did you hear that?” Violet asked.  
  
“I don’t know- I must have read it somewhere. Why do you ask?”

“Papa said that,” Sunny said. Violet smiled, proud of her little sister for showing signs that she was learning to communicate in ways everyone could understand.

“It’s awful to have people missing from your life, isn’t it?” Miss Caliban said. “It’s like a question that haunts you, and you never know if it will ever be answered.”

“We think it might be, though, with the right book,” Duncan said.

“Alright,” Miss Caliban said, frowning thoughtfully. “Well, a friend of mine is sending me some new titles now that she's abandoned her dissertation to become a welterweight boxer, so I'll ask her about it. Check back with me in a day or so.”

“Mind if we have a look around?” Klaus asked. Just then, the timer went off.

“Drat,” Miss Caliban muttered. “Vice Principal Nero will be here in-”

“ _Vice Principal Nero will be here in-”_ squawked Nero’s dæmon, as the vice principal entered the library.

“Vice Principal Nero is already here,” he said. “This library is supposed to be closed!”

“It is closed, and it’s empty- you must be having a bad dream,” Miss Caliban said, waving her hands in front of her face.

“That only worked on me once,” Nero replied, shaking his head.

“It was worth a try,” Miss Caliban said.

“All of you, report to the athletic field in ten minutes. Attendance is mandatory. Mandatory means _anyone who doesn't come has to buy me candy and watch me eat it.”_ He smiled. “This is a very exciting day for me, so you orphans and you twins should be excited.”

“The Quagmires are triplets,” Klaus replied.

“You call triplets twins if one of them has burned to a crisp,” Nero said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get my violin for the pep rally.”

“Welcome to Prufrock Prep, Baudelaires,” Miss Caliban said, once he was away. “In a world too often governed by corruption and arrogance, it can be difficult to stay true to one's philosophical and literary principles.”

“We wholeheartedly agree,” Klaus replied.

“All decent people do,” Miss Caliban said with a smile.

Duncan

They left the library, but they didn’t go straight to the pep rally. Instead, they stood outside the library for a few minutes.

“I wanted to find that book,” Klaus said.

“We still could,” Duncan replied. Part of him wanted to be the one to find the book, if there was a chance it might make Klaus smile. But he also wanted to find the book in general, to know what secrets it contained. “We’ll make a plan.”

“We can have a look again after the pep rally,” Violet said. “Surely that can’t take too long.”

“You’d be surprised,” Isadora replied. “They last for hours- and then on top of that we’ll have to go to his nightly violin recital. Most of the day is gonna be lost because we’re being forced to listen to somebody who can’t play violin insist on playing violin.”

“We could try again tomorrow, though,” Duncan added. “In the meantime, though, we can sneak in some fruit for the pep rally- we’ll bring some for you, too.”

“Thank you,” Klaus replied, smiling. Duncan couldn’t help smiling back. While he was aware that he’d only known Klaus Baudelaire a short time, and there was still a lot that he didn’t know about him, it felt like they’d known each other for far longer.

“It’s no trouble,” Isadora said, which was more than Duncan thought he could manage at the moment. “Our broom closet's next to the fruit bowl.”

“I don’t mean for the fruit,” Klaus replied. “I mean for making us feel at home. It’s been a long time since we’ve felt at home.”

“Well, I’m sure you already know,” Duncan said. Dorothy shifted into a small brown spaniel, wagging her tail in agreement.

“Know what?” Klaus asked.

“What friends are for,” he replied. “We’ll see you at the pep rally,” he added, before he and Isadora turned to leave.

As they walked down the corridor away from their friends, Isadora lightly tugged on Duncan’s sleeve.

“What?” he asked. Isadora rolled her eyes.

“You should really tell Klaus that you like him- it’s obvious that he likes you, too.”  
  
Duncan wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He did like Klaus- he liked him a lot, in fact. There didn’t seem to be much point in denying that fact, and he didn’t really want to deny it either. Before he could think of anything to say, though, they turned a corner and saw something that effectively stopped their conversation in its tracks.

A tall, skinny man dressed almost all in grey stood in front of them. He had one long grey eyebrow, and seemed almost devoid of colour, save for his dæmon, a small, scarlet salamander, which was perched on his shoulder.

“Hello, hello, hello,” he said, smiling down at Duncan and Isadora. “What are helpless orphans like you doing in a place like this?”

“Wait, who are you?” Duncan asked, frowning. The man rolled his eyes.

“Don’t pretend that this handsome face doesn’t haunt your every waking and sleeping hour,” he replied. “You will never be rid of me, and you will never be safe. The three of you better… wait. You two better…” he frowned, looking from Duncan to Isadora, then down to the floor. “Wait, where’s the midget?” He shook his head. “You aren’t the Baudelaires! Who are you?”

“Who are _you,_ you miscreant?” Duncan countered. Dorothy gave an irritated bark.

“ _Miscreant?”_ the man asked, frowning again. “Oh- I know who you are now. You sound just like your mother, Quigley.”

“My name’s Duncan.”

“Whatever,” he replied. “ _You miscreant, never again will you darken the doors of this hangar!_ Oh, she was such a tiresome woman- always reading Italian poetry and activating trap doors.”

“How did you know our mother?” Isadora asked.

“Oh, it’s a long story- you don’t want to hear it. Besides- that’s the least of what I know, orphans. I know the number of hairs on each of your heads, the number of sapphires in your secret vaults, the number of tombstones in your family plots. Well, well, it seems this trip to Prufrock will bring me twice the fortune. And there's nobody who can stop me.”

“Hey!” a voice from the other end of the corridor. The man turned, and Duncan looked past him. Carmelita Spats was standing at the end of the corridor, next to the man from the cafeteria.

“Larry?” the man asked, confused. Both Carmelita and Larry disappeared down the corridor, and the man followed after them without a backward glance at Duncan or Isadora.

When he was gone, Duncan pulled his dark green notebook out of his pocket, flipping through it to find the information he needed. Finally, he found the list of relevant details of Count Olaf’s appearance that the Baudelaires had shared.

“He definitely had one eyebrow, and his dæmon was a scarlet salamander,” he said, comparing the list with the man they’d just met.

“I bet he had the tattoo on his ankle, too,” Isadora added. “Come on, we have to warn the Baudelaires that something terrible is going to happen- besides the pep rally, I mean.”

Carmelita

Carmelita didn’t really want to be going after Larry the cafeteria worker. That burrito hadn’t even been very good in the end. But the man she’d met behind the bleachers earlier- who’d introduced himself as Count Olaf- had told her to look into any strange adults who’d showed up at Prufrock in the last couple of days, excluding him and his cohorts, obviously.

She still didn’t know what to do about Count Olaf. For now she was following his instructions, since it seemed safer than openly going against him. Despite that, though, she had tried to do something about him, even if nothing had come of it. She’d tried going to Miss Caliban, though she’d backed out once the librarian had left the library and spoken to her- and she’d called his attention away from Isadora Quagmire and her dorky brother earlier, though why he’d been talking to them in the first place she still didn’t know.

She found the cafeteria guy in the kitchen, his back to the fridge door. She walked up to him, Ginger flitting around her head, her tap shoes clacking on the floor.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?” he asked, holding up a soup ladle.

“Believe me, if I could leave you alone and carry on with my day, I would.” There was a whole speech she was supposed to give, but she wasn’t clear on which parts she was supposed to say, and which parts she was supposed to leave out.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve made me suffer for long enough,” she replied, deciding to just press on and say the whole speech.

“Seriously, what are you talking about? I’ve only been working at this school for a couple of days.”

“For years you've infiltrated my schemes, relying on morals and literature to muck up my life. Well, these are your victoriously final days.” Just as she’d finished, the Count entered the kitchen, walking up to Carmelita and the cafeteria worker. “How was that?” she asked.

“Not bad, although those last few lines were actually for me,” he replied.

“You probably should’ve specified that,” she said. “I was adorable when I said them, though.”

“That’s not what matters, though- theatre is about context.” He shook his head. “Never mind that, though- run along, the adults are speaking.”

Carmelita didn’t need to be told twice- she turned on her heel and walked away from the kitchen before either of the adults could say anything more.

Isadora

The pep rally was now in full swing. Isadora and Duncan slid into seats next to their friends. They’d forgotten to get fruit from the dormitories- seeing that the villainous Count Olaf had arrived at the school had made them forget about their original plan.

“Baudelaires!” Isadora shouted, trying to be heard over the noise. “We think you’re in danger!”

“What’s wrong?” Violet asked. “Did you see something?”

“We’re pretty sure we saw Count Olaf!” Isadora replied.

“What?” Klaus asked.

“We think Count Olaf is here!” Duncan shouted.

“ _What?”_ Violet asked.

Before Isadora could respond, though, Vice Principal Nero stepped onto the stage, waving his violin bow a few times to silence the audience. Isadora turned her attention to the stage, where three people had joined the Vice Principal. One of them was Carmelita, dressed in her bright pink cheerleader uniform, and who had been leading the audience in various chants and cheers. The other three, Isadora had never seen before. There were two old ladies with light brown cat-dæmons, dressed in the official red and black cheerleader uniform, and a tall person of unclear gender, with dark hair and a long white coat. Their dæmon was a small blue bird.

“Thank you, thank you,” Nero said, once the audience were silent. “Welcome to the mandatory pep rally. I don’t know which I like more, the word _pep_ or the word _rally.”_

Isadora looked from the stage to her brother and her friends. Duncan was checking something in his notebook, and Violet, Klaus and Sunny were frowning up at the three strange adults on the stage.

“Maybe we should ask our mascot!” Nero called. “What do you say?”

“What’s the mascot?” Violet asked.

“A dead horse!” Isadora replied. “But that’s not important!”

“What do you mean?”

“My brother and I saw…” Isadora began, but before she could continue, Mrs Bass tapped her shoulder.

“Be quiet, Miss Quagmire,” she said. Isadora sighed, and decided to wait a little longer for another opportunity to tell her friends what she and Duncan had seen.

“Now, I know that things have seemed less than peppy since our athletes, cheerleaders and beloved gym teacher vanished on the way home from that away game,” Nero continued. “However, Prufrock Preparatory School has a motto. It's _memento mori._ It's an ancient Greek saying…”

“Latin,” Klaus muttered.

“… Which means, _Remember, you will die._ And soon, indeed, the sun will set, the fiery orb of life, leaving me alone!” he cried, looking up to the sky dramatically. “Alone! Alone!” He was quiet for a moment, before continuing in a more normal voice. “Until, of course, you meet someone who truly understands and supports you with friendship, camaraderie and cash bribes. Our gym teacher was irreplaceable, but I have found someone I know who can fill her shoes.”

Isadora’s gaze flicked once again to her friends. She had a horrible, sinking feeling about who this new gym teacher was, and realised that this was her last chance to warn her friends about what she and Duncan had seen. Duncan seemed to have gotten the same idea, as he was writing out the words _Count Olaf is here_ in large letters on a clean page on his notebook.

“… And now, please welcome to the stage, a man with no résumé, no letters of recommendation, no credit history, but with such a marvelous ear for music that I've hired him as the newest member of our faculty!” The person in the white coat stepped forward, but Nero shook his head at them. “No, no, not you.” They stepped back, somewhat awkwardly. “Allow me to present your new gym teacher, Coach Genghis!”

Just then, a tall, skinny man dressed in a red tracksuit and a white turban crashed through the large drum on the stage. While it was a little harder to make out his salamander-dæmon from this distance, and his single grey eyebrow was hidden beneath the turban, Isadora could still see that he was the same man she and Duncan had met in the corridor- and looking at her brother and her friends, she knew they had come to the same conclusion.

“So much to learn,” he said, in a false Southern drawl. “So much to learn, and I am here to school you.”


	3. Chapter Three: In Which The Baudelaires Begin Their Special Orphan Running Exercises

Chapter Three: In Which The Baudelaires Begin Their Special Orphan Running Exercises

Carmelita

“Who can’t be beat?” Carmelita cheered.

“A dead horse!” the other students echoed.

“Who can’t be beat?”

“A dead horse!”

Carmelita continued to lead the other students in their cheering. It seemed important to at least attempt to act natural, to pretend that there was nothing wrong. Nobody else seemed to notice anything wrong- not Vice Principal Nero, not the teachers, and not the other students. Wait- she cast her gaze over the crowd, to the only five students who weren’t joining the cheering. The Baudelaires and the Quagmires didn’t look convinced by their new gym coach- and they seemed to be the only ones.

“I love the energy, I love it!” Olaf- no, Coach Genghis, she should probably be thinking of him by that name from now on- said, smiling widely.

“Yes, yes, it’s wonderful,” Nero said. “Now, let’s settle down, everyone.”

“Settle down?” Genghis asked, frowning at Nero. Carmelita noticed that he was using a fake voice, and wondered if that was necessary or if he was just doing it because he felt like it. “Did you hear what Vice Principal Shapiro just said?”

“Nero,” Nero corrected.

“ _Settle down._ How often I hear those words come out of people's ears and into my mouth. _Settle,_ a word which here means settling for less, and _down,_ my personal least favourite direction. Let me tell you a story. Some years ago, a woman came to me. She needed my help.”

As he continued to go on, Carmelita tuned him out. Instead, she looked over to where the Baudelaires and the Quagmires were sitting. None of them looked happy- even from here, she could see Klaus’s dæmon beside his chair, her tail sticking straight up and her back arched, radiating anger and hostility. _Don’t do anything stupid,_ she wanted to tell them.

“...And what did I say to her?” Genghis asked, bringing her out of her thoughts. “Do you think I told her to settle down? Answer me, pippity-squeaks! Do you think I told her to… settle down?” He glanced at Carmelita, who managed to smile.

“Probably not!” she said, shaking her pompoms.

“Probably not!” all but five of the students echoed.

“Probably not, indeed!” Genghis said. “I told her to stand up. I told her to actualize and incentivize. I told her to keep her eyes in the clouds and her feet on the stars. Do you know what happened?” Here, he looked across the crowd, looking directly at the Baudelaires. “She died in a mysterious fire.”

“Wait, what?” Nero asked, his dæmon cocking her small head in confusion.

“Settling down is what losers do,” Genghis continued, as if he hadn’t spoken.

“But what about that woman you were talking about?” Nero tried again.

“Settling down started World War 1,” Genghis said, ignoring him again. Nero opened his mouth again, then closed it, which was probably for the best. “Settling down is what happens when you bite your lip, and your lip gets swollen, so you bite your lip again, and then you keep biting your lip over and over. I don't want that. Do you want that, Prufrock Prep?”

“No!” cried the audience. Genghis smiled down at them.

“Let's bring in the violin!” he cried.

Carmelita allowed herself just a second to frown as she looked from the fake coach to her fellow students and back again, wishing that someone would do something, that she wouldn't have to keep pretending this was normal for much longer.

Klaus

Klaus glared up at the stage, not wanting to believe this was happening again but unfortunately unable to deny it. Olaf was here again, and everyone here seemed to be buying into his latest stupid alias. What was he planning this time, and what would they need to do to stop him?

“The whole school is falling for the treachery of an unhinged villain,” he said, turning from the stage to his sisters and their friends.

“That always happens at pep rallies,” Duncan replied, shaking his head. His dæmon, currently in her sparrow form, perched on his shoulder, nodding her own head in agreement.

“This might be our only chance to stop him,” Klaus said, getting to his feet before he could change his mind. “Sunny, you stay here,” he added. Quickly, he made his way to the stage, Violet following behind him, Lizzie, still in her cat form, walking beside him. “Stop the music!” he shouted, once they reached the stage.

“Everyone listen, please!” Violet added.

“How dare you interrupt a genius!” Nero snapped, his dæmon flapping her wings in irritation.

“And his guest violinist!” Olaf added.

Klaus rolled his eyes, tempted to say, _Neither of you are a genius, you’re both awful idiots._ Instead, he settled for saying something that was slightly less rude, but still true.

“This man is not a genius!” he said. “This man is an imposter!”

“The term is _improviser,”_ Nero countered, and it was all Klaus could do not to snap at him and tell him that contrary to his own beliefs, this wasn’t actually about him at all.

“This so-called gym teacher is the notorious villain Count Olaf. As long as he's at Prufrock Prep, nobody is safe.” Violet said.

“What are you doing?” Carmelita hissed. “Nobody’s going to take you seriously if you just blurt it out like that.”

Klaus frowned at her. Of all the people to believe them, he hadn’t expected Carmelita Spats to be one of them.

“This man is Count Olaf, and we can prove it,” he said, although by now he knew just how difficult it would probably be to prove it. Every time, he and his sisters had tried to point out Olaf’s more distinct identifying features, and every time, Olaf covered them up with disguises and excuses that would make them seem either idiotic, rude or both if they questioned them. Why would this time be any different?

“The Baudelaires seem like honest and decent people!” Miss Caliban said, standing up. “We should listen to what they have to say.” Then Mr. Remora muttered something, and she sat back down again.

“Count Olaf, who is wanted by the authorities for suspicion of fraud, theft, murder and child endangerment,” Violet continued.

“And arson,” chipped in Olaf’s dark-haired henchperson, which earned them an irritated glare from Olaf.

“… Who has one eyebrow instead of two,” Violet went on. “In fact, if Count Olaf would take off his turban for a second...” she added, reaching up for the white cloth Olaf had piled on top of his head. He stepped out of her reach before she could get hold of it, though.

“Isn’t she marvellous, everybody?” he said, as though Violet were a star performer on stage, not a girl attempting to call his crimes to attention. “I'm afraid my two glorious eyebrows will remain hidden underneath this turban, which I wear for religious reasons.”

“And what religion might that be?” Klaus asked, honestly curious as to how he was going to explain this one.

“Reconstructionist Judaism,” someone hissed from the direction of where the mascot stood in the corner.

“Reconst… ism,” Olaf said, and Klaus didn’t know whether to laugh or smack his face at this blatantly made-up excuse. “Yes, that.”

“This isn’t even a good excuse,” Lizzie whispered, only loud enough for Klaus to hear. “No way anyone’s going to be convinced by this one.”

“Well, I would never ask you to remove your turban,” Nero replied. Klaus wasn’t sure if he should be more annoyed at the Vice Principal for buying the excuse, or himself for still believing that just once Olaf’s lies would fail him and he’d be caught. “I'm against religious persecution, but I can't speak for the orphans.”

“He’s doing it again,” Lizzie whispered. “Making us look bad to get more support.”

“I can see that,” Klaus whispered back, before saying, in a louder voice, “Olaf can also be identified by the tattoo of an eye on his ankle.”

“My body is a temple, young man!” Olaf said with an indignant scoff. “I would never sully my skin the way so many young people do nowadays with their hedonistic lifestyle of loud music and abstinence.”

Klaus rolled his eyes, not convinced. “Why don't you take off your shoes and prove it?”

“Absolutely not,” Olaf replied.

“Is that for religious reasons, too?” Klaus asked, getting more and more fed up with each moment.

“No, it's because taking your shoes and socks off is gross.”

“You’re the one that’s gross,” Lizzie whispered, and Klaus had to agree with her.

“We can compare Genghis to the photograph of Olaf in The Daily Punctilio,” he tried again. “Does anyone have a copy of the Daily Punctilio we can look at?”

“You sound like a boring librarian,” Nero said, shaking his head. “Plus, we don’t need newspapers now that we have our advanced computer system!”

The advanced computer was rolled onto the stage. Olaf’s eyes darted around, looking at anything but the computer. Klaus allowed himself a small smile, thinking that now they might be getting somewhere.

“Look, he can’t even look at the computer, he’s too nervous,” he pointed out.

“No, no, I just… I, er…”

“Well, if you wouldn't mind standing in front of this very expensive electronic device and just clear this matter up, once and for all?”

Taking hold of the computer, Klaus and Violet rolled it across the stage, right at Olaf. He backed away from it, right to the edge of the stage, where unfortunately the computer stopped rolling and did not cause him to topple off the stage. For a moment, the computer was silence, and Klaus allowed himself to hope, just for a second, that it would say what he wanted it to say. Then, finally, the automated voice spoke up.

“This is not Count Olaf,” it said, and it was all Klaus could do not to kick it in its stupid metal face.

“Well, now that we’ve cleared that up, I think this calls for a little democracy, my second favourite style of government,” Olaf said, sounding far too pleased with himself. “How many of you want to hear more tiresome accusations hurled at an innocent man from orphans?”

“Investigate further!” Duncan called, and Klaus could’ve hugged him.

“We demand that this issue get further scrutiny!” Isadora added.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Olaf said, then clapped his hands together. “Students, faculty, in addition to normal gym lessons which will absolutely be going ahead, I plan to offer an additional programme to a few select students. Now, as anyone who has been to junior college knows, orphans tend to have unsound bodies, which leads to paranoia, delusion and untapped wealth.” Klaus frowned, wondering where he was going with this. “That's why I have developed the Special Orphans Running Exercises, or S.O.R.E. for short. Will the orphans in the house please stand?”

Klaus and Violet were already standing, and they watched as Sunny climbed up onto her chair, Duncan and Isadora stood up, and, surprisingly, Miss Caliban did the same- perhaps in solidarity, or perhaps she actually was an orphan herself.

“Okay, okay,” Olaf said. Even before he made his choices, though, Klaus could’ve guessed who they would be. “I choose… you,” he said, pointing to Violet, “and… oh, you,” he added pointing to Klaus, and finally, “and the little baby secretary I've heard so much about. The three of you will report to the athletics field at sundown and every night until further notice.”

“This does not excuse you from missing my nightly violin recital,” Nero chipped in. “The three of you are going to owe me a lot of candy.”

“Now, that’s the sort of leadership we need more of! You really are a genius,” Olaf replied.

“You’re a genius for noticing,” Nero replied, smiling, his dæmon flapping her wings happily. They went back and forth for a little longer, before Nero finally said, “everybody is dismissed, this pep rally is over!”

Everybody filed out of their seats, including the Quagmires and Miss Caliban, until only Klaus, his sisters and Olaf were left in the courtyard. Sunny toddled over to the stage, climbing up so she could stand beside her siblings.

“Whatever you’re up to, Count Olaf, we will put a stop to it,” Violet said.

“Really?” Olaf asked, rolling his eyes. “That’s funny, because it seems to me that if you really had the skills to stop me, we wouldn’t be having this lovely new instalment in this tragic tale, now would we?” He paused, shaking his head. “Oh, orphans, your parents really taught you nothing at all.”

“They taught us to survive,” Klaus snapped, hating the flippant way he talked about their parents.

“Well, I guess those who can't do, teach,” he replied, and it was all Klaus could do not to hit him there and then. “See you at sundown,” he added, and walked away.

Violet

Violet and her siblings headed straight to the Orphan Shack, Violet slamming the door behind them. Luckily, that didn’t send the whole structure crashing down, though it did make it wobble a little.

“He found us again,” Klaus said, slumping down onto one of the hay bales. “Everywhere we go, he shows up to steal our fortune.”

“How can he get our fortune as a gym teacher, though?” Violet asked, taking a seat on the bale beside him. Klaus shrugged.

“There’s treachery lurking in most exercise programmes,” he replied.

“I just can’t believe that he managed to fool everyone all over again.”

Just then, the door opened, and Duncan and Isadora squeezed their way into the shack.

“He didn’t fool everyone,” Duncan said, closing the door quietly behind him and his sister.

“Don’t worry, Baudelaires, don’t feel disgrace. The Quagmire triplets are on the case,” Isadora recited. Violet smiled, though it faded when she realised the full implications of Isadora’s latest poem.

“Look, you’re both very kind and generous, and we’re grateful for all you’ve done for us, but we can’t let you get involved.”

“Violet's right,” Klaus said. “Olaf is too dangerous.”

“Exactly,” Sunny added, from where she sat on the floor, Oliver coiled around her small shoulders, baring her teeth at the crabs as though daring them to come closer.

“He’s too dangerous for you to face alone,” Duncan countered. “We could run away, all of us, right now.”

“Our parents own the famous Quagmire Sapphires,” Isadora added. “So when we come of age, we can live on our own.”

“But we aren’t of age yet,” Violet pointed out. “You guys are what, thirteen?” They nodded. “Right, and I’m only fourteen. So that’s four years before we get the Baudelaire fortune, and five years before you guys get your sapphires. We can’t wait that long. And besides, we tried running away, and we ended up working in a lumber mill- and Count Olaf still found us there.”

The picture of their parents and guardians that they’d taken from Aunt Josephine’s house was still pinned to the wall where they’d put it the first day, although it was crumpled and worn by now. Isadora looked at it at the same time Violet did, seeming to notice it for the first time.

“That’s a picture of our parents,” she said, pointing to the dark-haired couple standing beside the Baudelaire parents. “Who are all these other people?”

“Those are our parents,” Violet said, going over to the picture so she could show her friend. “The man with the snake-dæmon and the woman with the eagle-dæmon were two of our guardians.”

“Uncle Monty,” Sunny said, “and Auntie Josie.”

“They all knew each other,” Klaus said. “Which means we’re right, this is all connected.”

“There must be a lot of mysteries that we’re only now noticing,” Duncan added. “Like why did your parents leave you that spyglass? And what is that book, and why does it matter?”

“We have to survive long enough to figure all this out,” Violet said. “And I think that book is gonna at least put us on the right track.”

“Miss Caliban said to check back in a day or so,” Duncan replied. “But we don’t really have that kind of time any more, it’s almost sundown.”

As if on cue, there was a knock on the door. Reluctantly, Violet opened it. She was not especially surprised to see Carmelita, still in her cheerleading outfit, still wielding her pompoms. She sighed, but decided it was probably best to just let her do her thing, and hope she did it quickly.

“I’m here to deliver a special message to the Baudelaires,” she announced. “ _The sun is set, hooray hooray, Coach Genghis sent me here to say, the Baudelaires must go to the field!”_ she sang. “ _And my name is Carmelita!”_ she added, as though there could be any doubt on that matter.

“That doesn’t rhyme,” Isadora said, giving her a withering stare.

“Only cake-sniffers care about poetic form!” Carmelita snapped.

“Anyone who actually wants to get better at writing songs should care about poetic form,” Isadora countered. “If wanting to get better at what I do makes me a cake-sniffer, then I’ll consider that a badge of honour.”

Carmelita was silent for a second, then she turned on her heel and flounced away, and Violet noticed Isadora was the only one who watched her go- though she wouldn't mention it, not right now. Right now, they had to get to the field.

Sunny

To say that Sunny Baudelaire was not really used to walking was something of an understatement. Until fairly recently, she had gotten about mainly by crawling and being carried by her siblings. Even now, she felt most confident walking when she could hold onto Violet with one hand and Klaus with the other, and walk between them, like she was doing right now.

Thus, she wasn’t really thinking of what Olaf could want with them, or what his “Special Orphan Running Exercises” would actually entail. She was far too focused on putting one foot in front of the other, getting to the sports field.

Finally, they reached the sports field, where Olaf and Nero were waiting. There was nobody else out here- not a single one of Olaf’s henchpeople, or anyone else who he might have got to help him whisk them away.

“Punctuation, orphans, punctuation!” Olaf said, once they were standing in front of him. Sunny looked up at Klaus. That didn’t seem like the right word, but Klaus would know for sure.

“Punctuation?” he asked. There- it wasn’t the right word. “Don’t you mean punctuality?” What was punctuation, then? She’d have to ask Klaus when they had a moment.

“You said to be here at sundown,” Violet said. “We’re not late.”

“That’s curious- someone just referred to you as the _late_ Baudelaires. Maybe they were talking about your parents.”

Sunny wondered what would happen if she kicked him. She should be allowed to do that, at least once- it seemed only fair. He shouldn’t be allowed to talk about Mama and Papa like that and not have anything bad happen because of it. _There’s a word for that,_ she thought, for when bad things happen to bad people. Caramel? Camel? No, those didn’t sound right.

“That reminds me of a story,” Olaf said, before she could think more about what the right word was. “Some years ago, a set of wealthy children came to me, needing my help. There were three of them, one of each. Girl, boy and baby. _Coach Genghis,_ they said to me, _we're failures. Our parents have abandoned us for careers as burnt-up skeletons. We have nothing in our lives but all these bags of money, and they're making us failures who read books and stuff._ And do you know what I told them?”

 _Seriously_ , Sunny thought to herself. _I should be allowed to kick him, just once. Mama and Papa didn’t abandon us, he shouldn’t say that they did, that’s not true._

“I know this one!” Nero said. _Good for you,_ Sunny wanted to say. “Did you tell them to stand up?” Olaf rolled his eyes.

“They were already standing.”

“To actualize and incentivize?” Nero tried again.

“That doesn't mean anything,” Olaf replied, shaking his head for emphasis. Then he held up three pairs of shoes in one hand, and a bucket and paintbrush in the other. “I told them to put on some very expensive running shoes and then to take this bucket of luminous paint. _Luminous,_ ” he added, “is a word I invented for things that glow in the dark.”

“We know what _luminous_ means,” Klaus snapped.

“And then they are to drag this bucket around and around until they have made a luminous circle on the ground.”

“That's it?” Violet asked. She sounded confused, which didn’t really put Sunny at ease. She might not say it out loud, but she kind of needed Violet and Klaus to at least have an idea what was going on, because they knew a lot more about the world than she did, and if they didn’t know what was happening, what chance did she have?

“Yes, that's my exercise program. Genius ideas are simple, like the wheel or neurosurgery. The orphans will run around and around and around in a circle to exercise their mother-and father-less legs.”

 _Run?_ Sunny had only just got the hang of this walking thing, how was she supposed to _run_ anywhere? And how come Olaf was making them do something so… silly, anyway? It didn’t make any sense. What did making them run around in a circle have to do with getting their parents’ fortune?

It didn’t become any clearer after Nero had left for his concert, or after they had finished painting the glowy circle, or after they had started to run around it- or in Sunny’s case, walk as quickly as she could. Nothing made any sense, not even a little bit.

Carmelita

On her own again, Carmelita found herself wandering down the corridors of Prufrock, not too sure where she wanted to go. The halls were too quiet, though, so she filled the silence by singing to herself- not one of her own songs, though, just a few snippets of ones she remembered from listening to a perfectly reasonable amount of musical theatre.

She was soon distracted from her singing, however, by the sight of a man walking round the corner. He had dark brown hair and a dark jacket- he seemed almost as dark as Count Olaf was grey, and much like the Count, the only thing brightening his colour scheme was his dæmon, a small green salamander.

“Who are you, and what are you doing at this school?” she demanded. It was then that she noticed that he was carrying the cafeteria guy, who appeared to be frozen.

“You must be Carmelita Spats,” the dark-haired man said. Carmelita took a small, clacking step backwards, not liking the fact that some cake-sniffing stranger knew who she was.

“How do you know who I am, cake-sniffer?”

“I work for an organization that keeps tabs on young people of interest.”

“Well, obviously, I'm interesting,” she replied, staying calm. She was getting very good at pretending everything was fine and normal.

“ _Interesting_ is not the same thing as _of interest,”_ the man countered. “They might often go hand in hand, but they are not synonymous.” He turned to go, before adding, “perhaps we’ll meet again, Miss Spats, or perhaps not. If you continue as you seem to be doing, though, you might find yourself turning into a bit of a cake-sniffer yourself.”

With that, he was gone, taking the cafeteria guy with him, and leaving Carmelita very confused.

Isadora

It was probably a long shot, going back to the library so soon after their last visit, but that didn’t stop Isadora and Duncan from returning there anyway. Luckily, Miss Caliban was still in there, dusting the shelves. Quickly, they slipped inside, shutting the door behind them.

“Quagmires!” Miss Caliban said, once she saw them. “What can I do for you two triplets?”

That made Isadora smile- nobody called them triplets any more, everyone kept insisting that without Quigley, they were only twins. It seemed that only the Baudelaires and Miss Caliban didn’t agree with that.

“We know it’s after hours, but did you find that book?” she asked. Shelley shifted into a small black dog, and looked up at the librarian with large, dark eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Miss Caliban said, with a shake of her head. “I know you’re desperate to get it.”

“It’s not just the book,” Duncan replied. “There's a whole mystery.”

“There certainly is,” Miss Caliban said. “I couldn't find the book, so I poked around. It's not in any system. It's like it doesn't exist.”

How was that possible? Isadora wanted to ask, but before she could, the door burst open to reveal Vice Principal Nero, violin case in one hand and a sign in the other.

“Who dares not be in the auditorium for my recital?” he demanded.

“The children had a question about the library,” Miss Caliban said, resting a light hand on Isadora’s shoulder, the other on Duncan’s- like she wanted to protect them somehow.

“The library is closed until further notice by order of the gym teacher,” Nero replied, holding up the sign.

“He can't close the library!” Miss Caliban exclaimed.

“Admittedly, I should have looked over his contract more closely. Or at all. Now he's also designated the freezer as off-limits, so there go all my Popsicles, and that new professor he brought has added a new class to the curriculum, so I suppose I’ve got to get that filled up. It's only temporary, though, until he gets his Special Orphans Running Exercises and what he wants, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now get moving, twins.

“We're not twins,” Duncan protested. “Our brother Quigley…”

“ _Our brother Quigley died in a fire_. I know, I know. Try to work up some pleasant small talk for a change!”

Shelley snarled at him, and Isadora would quite like to do the same, but it didn’t seem wise. They’d have to find some other way to get into the library- maybe they could brainstorm ideas with the Baudelaires tomorrow.

As they were walking along to the auditorium, they bumped into someone else- Carmelita Spats, of all people.

“Can I talk to you?” she asked, her gaze focused on Isadora.

“If you have something to say,” Duncan said, “then you can say it to both of us.”

“Stand down, Duncan Doughnuts, I’m not here to pick a fight.” She turned to Isadora. “Okay, maybe you were onto something earlier, about caring about poetic form and all that jazz. So, do you think…” she trailed off, tapping her foot almost absent-mindedly on the floor a couple of times. “Do you think you could help me get better?”

Isadora frowned at her, not sure how to respond. Since she and her brother had arrived at this austere academy, Carmelita had been making their lives difficult, and now she seemed to be making some strange attempt at offering them an olive branch- an attempt that didn’t involve any apologies or anything like that, it essentially just involved getting Isadora to do something for her.

“I don’t know,” she replied after a minute. “You’ve not exactly done very much that would make me want to help you out.” To her surprise, Carmelita nodded.

“Yeah, you’re right. I promise that from now on, I’ll back off you two, and the Baudelaires.” She placed a hand over her heart, like she was really making a pledge.

“Well, I’ll believe it when I see it,” Duncan said, and started to walk down the corridor away from them. After a few paces, though, he stopped. “Coming, Izzy?”

“In a moment,” she replied. She looked down at Carmelita. “What’s brought all this on, anyway?”

“It’s not important- I just don’t wanna become a cake-sniffer, that’s all,” she said, before turning on her heel and clacking away, which cleared up absolutely nothing.

Klaus

Klaus and his sisters kept running in circles- at least, Violet and Klaus kept running, Sunny was still walking, which would’ve probably been impressive had the circumstances been less dire.

“Keep running, orphans!” Olaf called. “Run for your lives!”

“Is this really all we’re doing?” Violet asked. “Just running round in circles?”

“There has to be something else,” Klaus replied. “There’s no way he’ll just make us run laps all night.”

As the night wore on, though, and they kept running and running, it became clearer and clearer that this really was it. They were not going to be doing anything else- they were just going to keep going round, and round, and round again.

Finally, the morning came, and they were allowed to return to the shack, where they collapsed into an exhausted heap, still knowing nothing about Olaf’s plan, or of how they could defeat his treachery. Perhaps worse than that, though, was something else they didn’t know- this was just the beginning of many, many dark days (and nights) to come.


	4. Chapter Four: In Which The Quagmires Hatch A Plan To Help Their Friends

Chapter Four: In Which The Quagmires Hatch A Plan To Help Their Friends

Violet

It had been almost two weeks, and nothing had really changed. Every day, Violet and Klaus attended the same monotonous classes, and Sunny was sent to work in Nero’s office. Every dinnertime brought Carmelita over to their table to inform them they were supposed to report to the athletic field- though to her credit, she had gotten less insufferable since that first day- and every evening brought them to the athletic field, where they ran laps until dawn.

Violet sighed, and dragged herself from the Orphan Shack to Room One. She really didn’t want to go to class, she just wanted to sleep for a week, preferably on an actual bed, not on a hay bale that was far too small for her. Sighing, she waved good bye to Klaus and pushed open the heavy wooden door. Duncan had moved seats so that he was sitting beside her the day after she and her siblings had came to Prufrock, but Violet was too tired to do anything more than hold her hand up to her friend in greeting as she slumped into her chair.

She slept through the class, something that had never happened before, not even after that time she’d pulled an all-nighter when she was ten, procrastinating her French homework so that she could invent a telescope that looked like a small kaleidoscope. It wasn’t until the class had ended and Duncan had woken her up, therefore, that she realised she had slept through a pop quiz- another first.

Klaus

Over in Room Two, Klaus was not doing much better than Violet. Klaus had plenty of experience staying up late at night and feeling a bit silly for doing so in the morning- perhaps more than his sister did, though they could both be as bad as each other in this sense.

However, he had quickly discovered that there was a huge difference between staying up all night reading, where he could sit in bed with his books, and stop any time he wanted, and where only his eyes would end up feeling tired, and staying up all night running laps, unable to stop when he wanted, and ending up completely physically exhausted, not just mentally exhausted.

Until now, though, he had managed to stay somewhat conscious through all of Mrs Bass’s lessons, though it had gotten harder with each passing day. Today, finally, he couldn't stay awake any longer, falling asleep almost as soon as the class began. Later, he would be grateful to Isadora for not waking him until the class was over, but until then, he would just be relieved for the brief respite- even if it was one that he had never needed to take before.

Sunny

Of all three Baudelaires, Sunny was pretty sure that all this running laps business was hitting her the hardest. She still couldn't run, and all the walking in circles was making her feet hurt. And she was sleepy all the time now, during the day as well as at night time.

It wouldn't be so bad if she could sleep during the day, if she could just stay in the Orphan Shack even for one day, she would feel a lot better, she was sure of it- but instead, every day Sunny had to report to Nero’s office, typing up letters and stapling things together. She knew that she wasn’t doing very well, though- the letters had more and more spelling mistakes, because it was getting harder and harder to think about how the word might look on paper, and she was too tired to make the office equipment work.

So really, it was no wonder that she ended up falling asleep at her typewriter on a few of the many, many days which rested between the many, many running sessions she and her siblings had to do. It was fine, though, it was only a little nap- how bad could it be?

Isadora

“You three must be on your last legs,” Isadora observed at lunch that day. It had been two weeks, and still none of them were any closer to understanding what Count Olaf’s plan was, or why it seemed to involve so much running.

“I haven’t been this exhausted since I stayed up all night with my first Tesla coil,” Violet said, propping her head up on one fist.

“Look on the bright side,” Duncan replied. “At least you weren’t late to class.”

“I’ve never flunked a test- but I didn’t answer a single question on that pop quiz,” Klaus said.

“Of course you flunked,” Isadora replied. In hindsight, she probably should’ve woken Klaus up so he could at least attempt the quiz, but it had seemed a bit mean considering how tired he was. It hadn’t exactly been a normal pop quiz, either- there had been a lot of questions about bank vaults- so it would probably just have ended up confusing Klaus as much as it had confused her. “Olaf has been making you run laps every night.”

“We’re no closer to figuring out his scheme,” Klaus said. “It’s like that luminous circle he made us paint is a giant glowing zero, and we know zero about it.”

“Maybe he’s hoping that you’ll be so sick of running, you’ll just hand over your fortune?” Duncan speculated.

“He’s had stranger plans,” Klaus replied. “If only the library weren’t closed, we could-”

“Hey guys,” Carmelita said, coming over to their table. She frowned, looking down at Sunny, who had fallen asleep with her head in her salad. “Is everything okay with Baby Dracula?”

Ever since Isadora and Carmelita had become grudging partners in rhyme, the younger girl had stopped calling the five orphans “cake-sniffers.” That hadn’t stopped her from calling them a series of equally absurd nicknames, though. Though Isadora would never say as much out loud, she found it weirdly endearing. There were a lot of things she’d noticed over the last fortnight that, while they had driven her up the wall in the past, she found weirdly endearing about Carmelita Spats- plus a few things she probably wouldn't have known otherwise. Her middle name was Kitana, she had a really good head for remembering song lyrics, and her favourite family member was her cousin Brandon, who she hadn’t seen in many years.

Of course, neither Duncan nor the Baudelaires knew that they had gotten to be this close. Isadora was going to tell them, of course, just… maybe not today.

“She’s fine, she’s just exhausted,” she said. “Do you want to join us, or…” she trailed off, aware that Duncan was looking at her like she had two heads. Outside of their lessons, she and Carmelita didn’t really socialise, and for the most part they were okay with that- at least, Isadora has assumed that they were.

“I’m not joining your sad Breakfast Club,” Carmelita replied. “I still have a reputation to uphold, you know.”

“Bitch?” Sunny asked, lifting her head briefly from the salad plate. _A reputation for what, being a stone-cold bitch?_

“Do you even know what that word means, Baby Dracula? Cause I feel like you shouldn’t know what that word means.”

“Fuck!” Sunny replied, which probably meant something like, _I know all sorts of words, including bad ones!_

“You’re a weird kid, you know that?” she said. Sunny just grinned, before flopping back into her salad. “Anyway, I’m over here cause I have a message for you three.”

“The usual?” Klaus asked. “Report to the Athletic Field at sundown to run laps?”

“No,” Carmelita replied. “This one comes from Nero- he wants to see you guys in his office right away.” She paused, looking at each of the Baudelaires in turn. “And I’m gonna be honest, he didn’t look very happy, so be careful.”

With that, she was gone, leaving the five orphans to think about what she’d told them, and wonder just how much worse things were going to get.

Violet

It turned out that Carmelita had been right- Vice Principal Nero was _not_ happy with them, and didn’t waste time letting them know exactly what they’d done to incur his wrath.

“Coach Genghis tells me that even after running laps for nine hours every night, you still remain out of shape and winded. Your teachers say you've flunked quizzes in personal anecdotes and measuring random objects. And finally, don't even get me started on Sunny's employee evaluation! I couldn't be more disgusted if I'd written it myself!”

“You did write it yourself,” Klaus pointed out.

“ _You did write it yourself!_ ” shrieked Nero’s dæmon, from where she was perched on the Vice Principal’s shoulder.

“So many problems, Baudelaires- fortunately, your new gym teacher has a solution.” He gestured to Olaf, who was leaning against the desk. “You have the floor, sir.”

“Let me tell you a story,” Olaf began. Violet sighed, fully expecting a long, drawn-out tale. “Home-schooling!” he declared, which wasn’t quite what she’d been expecting him to say.

“What?” Klaus asked, seemingly just as confused as Violet was.

“Home-schooling,” Olaf repeated. “It means staying at home, sitting at your kitchen table, instead of clogging up a classroom.”

“Vice Principal Nero, Mr. Poe specifically placed us at Prufrock Prep,” Violet protested. She knew perfectly well that if Olaf was allowed to take them out of this school, he would have no intention of home-schooling them.

“Mr. Poe wants us to stay here at least a trimester!” Klaus added.

“Well, you’ll need to keep your grades up, unless you want to be tossed out on your ears,” Nero replied. “Tomorrow morning, your teachers will give you both more or less comprehensive exams in front of the whole school. Sunny, on the other hand, will get a professional reappraisal featuring a special sequence of demeaning menial tasks.”

“And if you fail, it's off to Coach Genghis' Ultra-Dynamic Life-Ending Workshop,” Olaf added.

Violet looked from one adult to the other, Olaf’s vile plan finally falling into place in her mind. He had deliberately worn the Baudelaires out, so that they would fail their classes, and lead Nero to decide they should be expelled. Why hadn’t they worked it out sooner?

“We will pass those exams,” Klaus said, Lizzie giving her wings a determined flap.

“Of course we will,” Violet added. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, we're going to study in our shack.”

“You don't have much time,” Olaf observed, looking at the clock. “You're due at the athletic field for Special Orphan Running Exercises in a matter of hours.”

“We still have to run laps?” Violet exclaimed.

“Of course,” Olaf replied, with a shrug.

“And it doesn't mean you'll be excused from the violin recital!” Nero chipped in. “Looks like more candy for me!”

“We can't study for comprehensive exams and run laps all night!” Klaus protested. “We'd have to be two places at once!”

“Consider this a learning experience, orphans,” Nero said. “It's important you figure out the balance between academics and extracurricular activities.”

“Listen to us! This man is…” Violet began, just as Olaf happened to step in front of the advanced computer system.

“ _This is not Count Olaf!_ ” the machine informed the room, in its robotic voice.

“Oh, goodness, how careless of me,” Olaf said, smirking at the children. “Now, what is it you were saying?”

Violet didn’t say anything, instead she turned around, leading her siblings from the office. Clearly, they didn’t have time to waste talking, they had to get to work, to think of a plan that would stop Olaf’s plans and allow them to stay at Prufrock for at least a little bit longer.

Klaus

It was really, really not looking good. Klaus, his sisters and the Quagmires were crammed into the Orphan Shack once again, and they had only a few hours to think of a way to be both at the athletic field to run laps, and to study for their exams tomorrow.

“Violet,” Klaus said, looking down at his older sister. She was sitting on one of the hay bales, her hair tied up and her eyes closed. “Violet, Count Olaf is waiting for us at sundown. We don’t have much time.”

“Violet, we don’t have much-” Lizzie added. Just then, Violet’s eyes snapped open, and she smiled.

“I know what we need to do,” she said.

“We’re listening,” Klaus replied.

The plan was relatively simple- the Quagmires would disguise themselves as the two older Baudelaires, and they would build something to look like Sunny, to go in her place, so that she could get a decent night’s sleep, and Violet and Klaus would study for the exam, using Duncan and Isadora’s notes from the last two weeks of classes.

Of course, there was still a lot that could go wrong, but as the Baudelaires and the Quagmires filed into the dark, empty kitchen, none of them mentioned any of the problems they could encounter. Nobody seemed to want to admit that this plan was not fool proof- not when it was the only one they really had.

“Where should we start?” Duncan asked.

“Find some glasses,” Klaus replied. “Or at least something that could be used to make a fake pair.”

He would need the ones he was wearing, and he didn’t have a spare pair that he could loan Duncan. Together, they went to go and look for something they could use. Klaus supposed that he didn’t necessarily need to help here, but between their classes and the running exercises, he and Duncan only got to see each other at meals. Maybe that was enough for Duncan- maybe he didn’t want to hang out with Klaus without their sisters around. How would he know, when they so rarely got to talk on their own?

“How about these?” Duncan asked, holding up a couple of barbecue tongs. Klaus smiled, and nodded.

“Yeah, those will be perfect.” Klaus knew they should probably go to the big table, where the girls had gathered their supplies, and were working on building a fake Sunny, but at the same time, he didn’t want to move just yet.

“Klaus,” Duncan said, taking hold of Klaus’s sleeve with his free hand. “I don’t wanna sound like I’m trying to jinx this, but… I’m glad that we met. This austere academy has seemed a lot less austere since you showed up.” He paused, before quickly adding, “and Violet and Sunny, obviously.”

“Yeah, of course,” Klaus replied. “I’m glad, too,” he added. Then he moved his hand so that it was holding Duncan’s, and they went over to join their sisters.

Violet

At the table, Violet was constructing a fake Sunny out of a large bag of flour, a small balloon, a spare uniform and a small trolley. After dressing the bag of flour in the spare uniform, she tied the balloon to the top, drawing a little smiley face on it to really get the point across. Then she attached it to the trolley, tying a piece of string around the whole thing so that one of the Quagmires could pull it along behind them.

“This knot’s called the Devil’s Tongue knot,” she explained as she worked. “It was invented by female Finnish pirates in the 15th century.”

“There’s one thing we haven’t considered,” Isadora said, as she fixed her hair, trying to make it look like she had bangs. Violet handed her a black ribbon, to help her hold her hair in place. “Fake Sunny doesn’t have a dæmon.”

“You’re right,” Violet replied. Quickly, she pulled off one of her shoes and socks, then put the shoe back on. “It’s not the right colour, but it’ll do,” she said, going to find something to stuff it with. “Shelley will need to be in a hedgehog form as well,” she added, deciding to fill the sock with mashed potatoes, since she couldn't find anything better in the kitchen.

Shelley promptly shifted from his raven form to that of a hedgehog, identical to Prospero. Violet finished stuffing the fake Oliver, and attached it carefully to the fake Sunny’s shoulders. Duncan didn’t need to do anything about Dorothy, since Lizzie wasn’t settled yet. Still, Dorothy shifted forms anyway, so that she resembled a Little Owl- exactly the same as Lizzie’s current form.

“That’s kinda impressive,” Violet observed, stepping back to admire her handiwork.

“What can I say,” Duncan said, smiling at Klaus. “I’ve been paying attention.”

For a moment, none of them said anything. Then Klaus unbuckled the brown leather arm guard that their Aunt Josephine had given him, and gave it to Duncan.

“You should probably take this,” he said. “Just in case.”

“You guys don’t have to do any of this, you know,” Violet said, as Duncan adjusted the arm guard. “We can find another way to pass the test.”

“We may not _have_ to do this,” he said, “but we’re still going to. My sister and I aren’t about to just sit back and do nothing to help you.”

“I just…” Violet sighed. “I have this feeling, like we’re never gonna see you again. And you could just go back to your broom closet, and leave us to figure something out that wouldn't be putting you in danger.”

“If you fail your tests tomorrow and get kicked out, then we really will never see you again,” Isadora pointed out. “This is our best option- and besides, I’m sure it’s what our parents would do, if they were in the same position.”

“You’re right,” Violet replied.

She still didn’t really feel at ease with this whole situation, but if they wanted to stop Olaf, then this was the only solution they had right now. Even if, the more she looked at Isadora and Duncan, the less they looked like her or Klaus, even if the fake Sunny didn’t look or act much like the real thing. It was too late to think of anything better- this was all they had.

“We’ll have to be careful sneaking out,” Klaus said, once they were ready to go. “You guys go first, and we’ll wait until it’s clear.” Isadora nodded, and pulled open the door to the kitchens. Before she left, though, she turned to look at the Baudelaires.

“No mourners,” she said, and paused. When none of them said anything, she added, “no funerals.”

“Way to kill the mood, Izzy,” Duncan said, shaking his head. Isadora just smiled, and left the room.

Duncan took a step forward, to follow her out, then he turned around to face Klaus. Quickly, he leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, then turned and walked out of the room.

“Well, it certainly took you two long enough,” Violet said, smiling at her brother.

“Shut up,” Klaus muttered, unable to hide his blush.

Klaus

It was a long, dull night for Klaus and Violet. While Sunny slept, they went back and forth with Duncan and Isadora’s notebooks, reading the information and testing each other on what they had learned. Klaus found the memorising part fairly easy- though he would’ve found it a lot easier had he been better rested- so he ended up spending much of the night testing Violet’s memory more so than his own.

“What did Mr. Remora have for dessert last Tuesday?” he asked.

“A pudding,” Violet replied.

“What kind of pudding?”

“I’m not sure- butterscotch, maybe?”

“No, it was rice.”

“Right, right, rice pudding- I’ll have to remember that.”

All night, they kept going, until they had both memorised each measurement and anecdote that the little black and green notebooks contained. They just had to hope that would be enough, and that this time tomorrow, they would be safe, and allowed to stay at Prufrock Prep with their friends.

Duncan

So far, their disguises seemed to be holding up. Perhaps it was because of the dark, or perhaps Olaf really was just that unobservant, but he hadn’t noticed that the three Baudelaires were really two Quagmires and a bag of flour on wheels when they arrived at the athletic field. He’d just told them to start running, and gone to sit over on the stands, where he was soon joined by one of his henchpeople- not the tall one in the white coat, the one with hooks instead of hands.

“I know we’re doing this for serious reasons,” Duncan said, as they ran. “But it’s still exciting.”

“It may not be particularly wise,” Isadora replied, “but it’s a thrill to be in disguise.”

It was all going fairly well, until the string attached to the Sunny dummy broke mid-lap. At first, neither Duncan nor Isadora realised what hat happened, until they heard a voice from the stands.

“Run, baby, run!” yelled Olaf’s henchman. Duncan looked down, and saw the frayed piece of string in his sister’s hand.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“We keep running,” Isadora replied, and together they ran straight back into the school.

“Do you think we can make it to the broom closet?” Duncan asked, as they ran through the dark corridors.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Isadora said, stopping in front of the oak doors of the library.

Duncan had expected to find the doors locked, but they were open. He wondered if Miss Caliban had left them open, just in case someone would need to use the library. Quietly, they slipped inside, leaning their backs against the door. Duncan took off his fake glasses, though he left the arm guard on.

“Look over there,” Isadora said.

There was a trolley full of books a few feet away, and the spine of a large grey book was visible on the bottom shelf. Quickly, they crawled over to it, and pulled it out. It wasn’t _The Incomplete History of Mycology, The Incomplete History of Cartography, The Incomplete History of Anthropology_ or even _The Incomplete History of History._ It was _The Incomplete History of Secret Organisations._

“It was here the whole time,” Duncan whispered. “It was here all this time and we didn’t know.”

“Let’s not focus on that right now,” Isadora replied, standing up and moving deeper into the library. “Let’s do some studying of our own.”

Using the spyglass as a torch, they opened the book to a random page. There was a picture of a spyglass on it, just like the one they were holding. The rest of the page listed different combinations that could be made with the dials on the spyglass, as well as what some of them did.

“Look,” Duncan observed. “It can create heat as well as light. You don’t think…” he trailed off.

“If you wanted to start a fire,” Isadora pointed out, “you could just use the light feature, because of the scientific principle of the divergence and refraction of light”

“That’s true,” Duncan said, and turned the page. The next page was titled _VFD,_ followed by a list of different phrases with those initials. “Verbal Fridge Dialogue, Volunteer Feline Detectives, Volunteer Fire Department… there’s so many phrases here.”

“What do you think they mean? What connects them all, besides the initials?” Isadora speculated. She turned the page again, revealing a picture of a fancy, blue and white sugar bowl.

“What’s so important about a sugar bowl?” he asked. Before Isadora could answer, though, or they could read more of what was on the page, the door burst open, to reveal Count Olaf’s hook-handed henchman.


	5. Chapter Five: In Which The Baudelaires Take Their Comprehensive Exams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A.N- Here we are at the end of The Austere Academy! I hope you've all enjoyed the story so far! I won't be starting Ersatz Elevator straight away, cause I have exams next week (plus a few other projects I'm working on) but it will be starting later this month, hopefully!

Chapter Five: In Which The Baudelaires Take Their Comprehensive Exams

Carmelita

It was the morning of the comprehensive exams, and Carmelita was worried. She hadn’t seen Isadora or her brother since yesterday, and when she had checked their broom cupboard, they weren’t in there. She didn’t know where they were, though she assumed they were with the Baudelaires, or maybe they were already in the auditorium with everyone else.

The trouble with making assumptions, though, is that they can be rather dangerous things to make, particularly in the morning, and particularly if they turn out to be incorrect. Making incorrect assumptions is an easy way to end up in trouble, disappointed, or heartbroken, as Carmelita would discover by the day’s end. That did not stop her from making assumptions about the whereabouts of Isadora Quagmire, though, as she made her way to the Orphan Shack to fetch the Baudelaires for their exams, though.

As she got closer, though, she noticed something that distracted her from her thoughts for a moment. There was yet another strange adult on the grounds of Prufrock Prep, this one a man with a black bowler hat and a dark grey suit, whose dæmon was a small black mole. He was speaking to Coach Genghis about something, and as she got a little closer, she could hear a little more of what they were saying.

“I understand they've missed several violin recitals, and that Vice Principal Nero is thereby entitled to several bags of candy,” the man in the hat was explaining. Carmelita smiled, an idea forming in her head.

“So am I,” she said, skipping over to the two adults. _Might as well,_ she thought. _You don’t often get free candy, do you?_

“And who are you, little girl, besides adorable?” the man in the hat asked, smiling down at her.

“My name is Carmelita Spats,” she replied. “I deserve candy for telling you where the Baudelaires are.”

“I suppose that more or less follows,” the man said, handing her a bag. “Here you go.”

“They're in that shack,” she explained, pointing to the flimsy structure beside them. She didn’t like to look at the shack too closely, didn’t like to confront just how unfairly the school treated orphans, but now that she was looking at it in the light of day, the flimsier and smaller it looked. How could anyone sleep in there? Why should they have to?

“Shack?” the man asked, confused.

“Nobody said anything about a shack,” Genghis said, then led the man away, in the direction of the auditorium.

Once they were gone, Carmelita pushed open the door to the shack. Violet, Klaus and Sunny were all there, passed out on their hay bales, but the shack was otherwise empty.

“Hey, wake up!” she shouted, tapping her feet a few times for emphasis.

“Is it time for the test already?” Klaus said, sitting up groggily. He still had his glasses on, she noted.

“Yes,” she said, simply. “Have you seen Isadora?” she added, cutting straight to the point.

“Not since yesterday evening, no,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

“She wasn’t in the broom cupboard- neither was Duncan.” It was possible that wasn’t what he had meant, but it was the only answer he was getting for now. No way was she going to tell them why she cared what happened to Isadora.

“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about,” Klaus said, making the same assumption that Carmelita had. “They’re probably already in the auditorium.”

“Yeah, probably. Speaking of which, we should get going.” She tossed Klaus the bag of candy. “Everyone’s waiting.”

V iolet

The whole school had filed into the auditorium to watch the Baudelaires take their exams. Everybody had to go past the advanced computer system in order to get in, which just seemed redundant at this point. Not just because Olaf had already infiltrated the school, but because checking the faces of a bunch of teenagers when you were trying to find a grown man was a waste of everyone’s time.

“Baudelaires!” a familiar voice called, as Violet and her siblings made their way over to the stage.

“Speaking of wasting everyone’s time,” Prospero whispered, only loud enough for Violet to hear.

“Mr. Poe, what are you doing here?” Violet asked, trying to sound polite.

“Well, I'm giving you a very disappointed look. You've been spending too much time with extracurricular activities. I don't think homeschooling is the answer, but I brought along the necessary paperwork, as suggested by Vice Principal Nero and by a gym teacher who I met wandering around outside.”

Did Mr. Poe ever actually listen to himself speak, Violet wondered, or was it just like white noise in his head?

“That gym teacher is Olaf in disguise,” Klaus said. “He tracked us down and is in the middle of a scheme to steal our fortune.”

“Olaf?” Poe asked. “But... what about the computer system Nero told me about?”

“It hasn't worked,” Violet explained. At that moment, Nero walked into the auditorium, setting off the machine.

“ _This is not Count Olaf,”_ the robotic voice announced.

“Well, it certainly appears to be working,” Poe observed. Violet rolled her eyes. “You must be Vice Principal Nero,” he continued, turning his attention to Nero.

“The computer system didn't recognize Olaf, because he's in disguise,” Klaus tried. Mr. Poe shook his head.

“Klaus, what sane man would disguise himself four times in a row?”

“Bold,” Sunny muttered, by which she meant, _Awful bold of you to assume Olaf is sane._

“Believe me, Poe, I've seen this sort of thing before,” Nero said. “Children will say anything to explain getting bad grades and failing at their work as administrative assistants.”

“Administrative assistants?” Mr. Poe asked. Seeing an opportunity to let him know that their situation at Prufrock was pretty dire, Violet nodded.

“Yes, Sunny's been working as a secretary since she got here.”

“Sunny should be in preschool!” Mr. Poe protested. “That doesn't seem suitable.”

“Well, if they flunk these exams, the Baudelaires will be expelled, so it hardly matters now,” Nero replied, with a shrug.

“ _This is not Count Olaf!”_ the advanced computer system informed them, as Count Olaf walked into the auditorium.

“There you are, Coach Genghis!” Nero said, beckoning Olaf to join them.

While the adults exchanged pleasantries, Violet cast her gaze around the auditorium. Something was wrong- she couldn't see Duncan or Isadora anywhere. When Carmelita had asked where they were, Violet had made the assumption that they would be in the auditorium- an assumption, she was now realising, that she probably shouldn’t have made.

“This so-called Coach Genghis is Olaf in disguise,” Klaus protested. Violet frowned, debating whether or not she should let him know that their friends seemed to be missing now, or wait until after the tests.

“Klaus, you can’t argue with technology,” Mr. Poe replied.

“Precisely,” Nero said. “Now, let’s get started with these tests, shall we?”

Violet, Klaus, Sunny, Nero and Olaf assembled on the stage, and Carmelita led the audience in the same cheer she had led them in during the pep rally two weeks ago. Violet wondered if Carmelita had noticed the same thing that she had- that the Quagmires were nowhere to be seen in the audience. She was about to try and let her know, when Olaf clapped his hands, addressing the crowd.

“I love the energy, I love it!” He turned to look at Nero. “Do you love it, Caligula?”

“It’s Nero,” Nero corrected.

“This school has a new kind of spirit energy- a sense of unity and joy which you usually cannot find unless you are at a birthday party or a public hanging. I think the flunking of the Baudelaire children of this school is bringing out the best of all of us. And so, without further ado…”

“A violin cadenza in the style of the Human League!” Nero declared.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, let's not get ahead of ourselves,” Olaf cut him off, which was the only good thing he had done in pretty much the entire time that Violet and her siblings had known him. “Hey, Gomorrah! Sass!” he called.

“It’s Mrs Bass, and my name is Remora,” Mr. Remora said, as he and Mrs. Bass walked out onto the stage. Violet noted that both Remora and his dæmon were each carrying a banana.

“Well, we’ll find out who's full of remora soon enough. Test them!” The crowd soon took up the chant, until Mr. Remora asked the first question, and they quietened down.

“Violet, in the story about my pet donkey, how many miles did the donkey run?”

“Six,” Violet replied, after taking a moment to think about it.

“ _Six_ ,” Nero repeated, mockingly.

“Yes, that’s correct,” Remora said.

“Klaus, how long was the book with the yellow cover?” Mrs. Bass asked.

“Nineteen centimetres,” Klaus replied.

“ _Nineteen centimetres!”_ squawked Nero’s dæmon.

“That is correct,” Mrs. Bass said, and then it was Sunny’s turn.

“Sunny Baudelaire,” Nero said, approaching the youngest Baudelaire with a stack of file cards. “I need you to organize these file cards of students who owe me candy. But not by name! No! But by the colour of candy I want!”

Sunny took the cards, and started sorting them into six differently coloured piles. Once she had finished, she smiled up at the Vice Principal, as if to say, _That was nothing- have you got anything that’s actually a challenge?_

“Oh, that’s very impressive, I must admit,” Nero said.

Klaus

The tests continued on for maybe another half hour, with Violet and Klaus continuing to get every answer correct and Sunny continuing to perform each menial task she was presented with. Finally, Mr. Remora and Mrs. Bass closed their books with a little snap.

“We’ve come to the end of the comprehensive exams, and the professional reappraisal for the Baudelaires,” Mr. Remora said. “Violet is a fine student, and passes language arts with high marks.”

“I’ve never encountered anyone more fluent in the metric system than Klaus. He gets an A-plus, two centimetres by one centimetre,” Mrs. Bass added.

“I hate to admit it, but Sunny is a fantastic administrative assistant,” Nero said. “Look,” he added, pulling a sheet of paper from the typewriter Sunny had been using. “She edited my résumé, highlighting my musicianship, without drawing attention to the fact I never graduated middle school.”

“Noteasy,” Sunny replied, by which she meant, _It wasn’t easy._

“What my sister means is, did we all pass?” Violet asked.

“As much as it pains me to admit, you pass with flying colours,” Nero replied. “Mr. Poe, I will allow them to stay the remaining trimester, and you may leave after giving me the candy.”

“Thank you, Vice Principal Nero,” Mr. Poe said. “Baudelaires, the disappointment that I expressed earlier has been lifted by the fact you clearly memorized facts and anecdotes to the best of your abilities. Sunny, I may consult with you later about the bank's latest quarterly report, which could use a more dynamic layout.”

“Nosec,” Sunny replied, by which she meant, _Don’t you have an actual secretary you can ask for help? I’m only a baby!_

“Hold on, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves!” Olaf declared. Klaus rolled his eyes, irritated but not surprised at this point. “This is a comprehensive exam, isn't it?” he asked, coming forward to stand beside Nero. “I'm the gym teacher, and I haven't given my test. According to the Prufrock Preparatory Handbook, gym teacher evaluations are worth a full 51% of their grade.”

“That is actually correct,” Nero said. “But how did you know?”

“A long time ago, a handsome young man was expelled from this very school, on this very stage, for that very reason. So, one last challenge, Baudelaires. And this one will determine your entire future.”

“We’d be happy to run laps,” Violet replied.

“We’re in extremely good shape,” Klaus added.

“I have a far better idea,” Olaf countered. “Arm wrestling, no holds barred, against an opponent who is as heavy and as slow as a bag of flour- Sunny Baudelaire!”

“That’s not fair!” Klaus protested, as the two white-faced women placed a small table and two chairs in the middle of the stage. “You’re a fully-grown adult, and Sunny’s only a baby!”

“He does have a point, that hardly seems sporting,” Nero said.

“Fine,” Olaf muttered. “Bookworm, you’re up,” he said, pointing to Klaus.

“You can take the both of us,” Violet said, taking a step forward. “Unless you don’t think you’re string enough for that?”

“A real gym teacher would be able to do it with no problems,” Klaus pointed out.

“That’s true,” Nero added. “Coach Genghis, surely you’re stronger than two simpering schoolchildren!”

“Of course I am!” Olaf said, taking a seat.

Violet and Klaus sat across from him, and rested their elbows on the table, clasping their hands together. Olaf gripped their hands, and started attempting to pull them down.

“This reminds me of a story,” he began, as Violet and Klaus started attempting to pull his hand down to the other side of the table. “Some time ago, three orphans came to me needing my help. _Coach,_ they said to me, _we're complete failures. We have an enormous fortune, and we're keeping it all to ourselves out of our own selfishness. How do we learn to share? How do we learn to give up in the face of all-powerful, very good-looking physical strength?_ And do you know what I told them?”

“You can never give up!” Violet said, pulling their hands a little closer to the table.

“You can never give up, even if you find yourself in terrible circumstances!” Klaus added, pulling their hands closer still. “You must keep struggling!”

“You must struggle until you find a safe place to live!”

“You must struggle until you find noble and reliable friends!”

“You must struggle…”

“And struggle…”

“Until the world can see who you really are!” Just as Violet said that, Sunny popped up beside the table, and pulled everyone’s hands down the rest of the way. As she did so, the impact was enough to send Olaf’s foot in the air- and his shoe flying right off.

Sunny

All things considered, Sunny had thought she and her siblings had done very well on their tests, even before Nero had said they passed. Sorting those coloured file cards was a lot easier than trying to operate a typewriter, since she knew her colours a lot better than she knew her letters. Though even the bits that had involved using the typewriter hadn’t been too bad. She more or less knew how it worked now, and now that she was much less sleepy than she had been the last couple of weeks, she could actually think about what she was doing. Sure, most of the words she’d had to write were probably spelled wrong, but at least she’d been able to guess at how they might be spelled. And they couldn't all be wrong- you had to spell résumé with a z, didn’t you?

Anyway, it had all been going just great, until Olaf had stuck his big foot in the middle of everything, insisting that they had to do another stupid test, this time involving arm wrestling. Sunny wasn’t entirely sure what that was, and was therefore relieved when Violet and Klaus stepped in to do it in her place. Still, when she had spied the opportunity to help out, she had grabbed it with both hands.

“That kid came out of nowhere!” Olaf exclaimed. Sunny grinned up at him, ready to say something like, “Y _es, and I will do it again- only next time I’ll bite!”_ when Nero spoke up.

“Holy Beethoven, I see what you mean, Baudelaires!”

“Finally!” Klaus cried.

“What you mean… is that I should keep on struggling, and then perhaps I'll be invited to join a legitimate orchestra.”

“No, that's not what we mean at all,” Violet replied, far more nicely than Sunny might have under the same circumstances.

“Your shoe, sir,” Nero said, ignoring her and handing Olaf the shoe that Sunny had knocked off earlier.

“Look at the tattoo on his ankle!” Violet pointed out, before Olaf had the chance to cover it up with his shoe again.

“Egad!” Mr. Poe exclaimed. “I'd know that ankle anywhere!”

“You flatter me, kind sir,” Olaf replied, shoving his foot back into the white shoe.

“Don't call me _kind sir,_ kind sir. You're Count Olaf, and that tattoo proves it,” Mr. Poe said. “It's too late to cover it up with a probably overpriced running shoe!”

“I am not covering up anything,” Olaf countered, tying up his shoelaces. “I need to wear these.”

“Don't be ridiculous! Why would a notorious criminal need running shoes?”

Olaf stood up, smirked at the banker and the Baudelaires, then replied: “For running,” and ran from the stage and out of the auditorium.

“Mr. Poe, you have to go after him!” Violet shouted. When the banker didn’t move, though, she and Klaus turned to run from the auditorium. “Stay there, Sunny, we’ll be back!”

 _Yeah, sure,_ Sunny thought, _like that’s going to happen._ She climbed down from the stage, and was about to start hurrying after her siblings, when someone else jumped down beside her, landing with a familiar clacking sound.

“You’re going after them, aren’t you, Baby Dracula?” Carmelita asked. Sunny nodded, unsure where she was going with this. “Come on,” she said, holding her arms out. “We’ll catch up to them faster if I carry you.”

Sunny nodded, and allowed Carmelita to pick her up. As they ran in the same direction Olaf, Violet and Klaus had gone, though, they both realised this maybe wasn’t the best way to travel. For one thing, it was obvious that Carmelita had never actually held a baby- or a toddler- and had only the vaguest idea of what she was doing.

“No offence, Baby Dracula, but you’re pretty heavy,” Carmelita grumbled. “We’re almost there, though, just a little further.”

However fast they ran, though, they were still too late to be of any help to either Sunny’s siblings or the Quagmires.

Violet

Violet and Klaus followed Olaf out of the building, their fortnight of running laps finally coming in handy. As they passed the Orphan Shack, Violet managed to grab hold of Olaf’s turban, pulling it off his head. She’d hoped that might be enough to stop him- maybe she could use it to trip him up, or quickly fashion it into some kind of lasso or something like that.

However, while it did briefly disorient him, he recovered almost irritatingly quickly, and continued running away. He passed by the Orphan Shack, and burst through the gates of the school. Violet and Klaus followed him out, just as he climbed into his long, black car, and started to drive away.

Just when it seemed like things could not get any worse, though, Violet saw that Olaf and his troupe were not the only people in the car- Duncan and Isadora were in the back seat, pounding against the back window.

“Klaus!” Duncan yelled. “We’ve found the answers!”

“Duncan!” Klaus yelled, then looked quickly at Violet. “What can we do?”

“Keep running,” she replied. They ran as fast as they could after the car, even though deep down Violet knew that it would do no good.

“VFD!” Isadora shouted. “You have to remember, VFD!”

“Isadora!” Violet cried.

“Duncan!” Klaus yelled.

“VFD, VFD!” both Quagmires yelled. “You have to help us so we can find the rest of the answers!”

It was no good- the car was going too fast. It passed the large front gates of the school and disappeared out of sight, taking the Quagmires with it.

“Duncan,” Klaus breathed.

Violet closed her eyes, not knowing what to say or do. The Quagmires had been her friends, and she loved them dearly in that sense, but at the same time, she knew that it was different for Klaus. He had really liked Duncan, and he should have had more time to understand those feelings, to come to terms with them. Instead, Olaf had shattered their blossoming friend group- and Klaus and Duncan’s blossoming romance- the way that he had shattered every other positive thing that had come into the Baudelaires’ lives since the death of their parents.

A clattering noise behind her brought her back to the moment. Turning around, she saw Carmelita, carrying Sunny, running towards them. She stopped once she reached them, set Sunny down, and looked around.

“Where…” she began.

“They’re gone,” Violet said, flatly. “Count Olaf, all of his troupe, and the Quagmires.”

Carmelita was quiet for a moment, cradling her dæmon in her arms. “This is all my fault,” she said eventually, so softly Violet wasn’t sure she heard her correctly at first.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“This is all my fault,” Carmelita repeated. “Count Olaf would never have gotten in here if I hadn’t let him in.”

“You did _what?”_ Klaus asked, rounding on her. Lizzie shifted into her cat form, her back arched in anger.

“Klaus, leave it,” Violet said, standing between them, one hand towards her brother, the other towards Carmelita. “Olaf would've found some other way to get into the school, you know that. I know you’re upset, but let’s not forget who our real enemies are, okay?”

Klaus took a step back, both he and Lizzie visibly deflating. Violet looked down the driveway, even though the car was long gone. Their real enemies were out there, and none of them would be safe until they had been defeated, and the Quagmires had been rescued. Until then, they could not give up.


	6. Chapter Six: In Which The Baudelaires Arrive At 667 Dark Avenue

Chapter Six: In Which The Baudelaires Arrive At 667 Dark Avenue

Violet

In the end, it hadn’t mattered that the Baudelaires had passed their tests and reappraisals with flying colours. Once it got out that Count Olaf had kidnapped the Quagmires, Nero had decided that he didn’t want Violet and her siblings to stay at Prufrock Prep. Violet suspected that he was just glad for any excuse to be rid of them- especially if their absence meant that his school would now be completely orphan free.

So now, they were back in the City, being dropped off at yet another new guardian. Mr and Mrs. Squalor lived on Dark Avenue, a few blocks away from where Violet and her siblings had lived with their parents before the fire. Violet had thought that being so close to her old home would bring back painful memories, but this neighbourhood was so different from the one she and her family had lived in, she almost forgot that her home was close by.

“I know you children must be nervous,” Mr. Poe said, from where he sat in the front seat of his car. “I was a little nervous trying to find you a new guardian, given your track record.”

Violet could only just see the outline of Mr. Poe’s bowler hat from where she sat. Normally, she would be able to see it much more clearly, but the street that they were on was so dark, she could scarcely see anything. Of course, when she’d been told that her new guardians lived on a street called Dark Avenue, she hadn’t thought that meant it was literally a dark avenue, but this street was lined by large trees, which effectively blocked out all the light.

“Never fear, though- this is a very fashionable block, much more fashionable than where you lived with your parents, even though it’s only a few blocks away.”

“We’re not concerned with how fashionable it is,” Violet snapped. There were far more important things on Violet's mind than whether her new home was fashionable.

“We're more than nervous, Mr. Poe,” Klaus added. “We're anxious. My b… I mean, our friends have been kidnapped by Count Olaf.”

Klaus had been pretty quiet since they had left Prufrock. Violet wished she knew how to help him, that she knew what to say to make him feel better. What were you supposed to say when the person your brother had a crush on was kidnapped by a dangerous criminal? Time and time again, Violet found herself running into situations where her siblings needed help, and she had no idea what to do. She wished her parents were still here, so she could ask them for help- though, then again, if they were still alive, none of these unfortunate events would've happened, and she wouldn't need help dealing with them.

“Ah, yes, the Quagmire twins,” Poe said.

“They’re triplets,” Violet corrected. “Their brother Quigley died in a fire, but they’re still triplets.”

“Well, the worst has already happened to him- let’s focus on David and Imogen for now, and we can discuss their birth order later.”

“You mean Duncan and Isadora?” Klaus corrected.

“That’s what I said,” Poe replied. Just then, they heard a siren go past. “Do you know what that is?” he asked.

“A police car?” Violet replied.

“Exactly- part of a citywide manhunt to apprehend Olaf and rescue your friends. We at Mulctuary Money Management are co-sponsoring every effort to bring this ghastly villain to justice. Look at the wanted posters we have pasted up all over town.”

Violet peered out of the window into the dark street, but she couldn't make out any posters.

“You can’t see them,” she pointed out. “The trees are blocking the light.”

“Trust me. It's a good likeness of a very bad person,” Poe replied, then opened his car door and got out. “Once I have dropped you at this apartment where some more old friends of your parents have promised to be your guardians, I'm taking a helicopter ride to search for the Quagmires using the binoculars my wife gave me as an anniversary present. Now, let's see…” he looked around the dark street. “Has anyone seen the numbers 667? It should be somewhere on this block.”

“Another mysterious set of our parents’ friends,” Violet said, as she and her siblings climbed out of the car. “More people we know nothing about.”

Klaus

When they finally made it into the building, they were greeted by a doorman wielding a torch, whose dæmon was a Dalmatian.

“Names?” he asked, flashing the torch in their faces.

“I’m Violet Baudelaire, and these are my siblings, Klaus and Sunny,” Violet replied.

“You three are expected,” the doorman said. Then he flashed the torch in Mr. Poe’s direction. “But who’s that with you? This is a restricted area.”

“Don’t mind me, I’m just dropping off the Baudelaires, and then I’m off to catch my helicopter.”

“Sorry, no unauthorised parties are allowed- not when there’s a citywide manhunt going on.”

“Well, in that case, goodbye, Baudelaires,” Mr. Poe said. “Remember, if you need to contact me, I’ll be in a helicopter and will not be reachable at any moment at any time.” With that, he was gone.

“Friend of yours?” the doorman asked.

“Oh, he works at a bank,” Klaus replied. The doorman nodded.

“I know the type- in fact, you’ll be staying with the city’s sixth most important financial adviser and their spouse. Mr. and Mrs. Squalor live in the penthouse, which is the top floor of 667 Dark Avenue, the most fashionable and secure building in town. Count Olaf won't be able to get in or out of this building. Sorry about the lighting,” he added. “Dark is in.”

“In what?” Violet asked.

“Just _in,_ ” he replied. “You can take these stairs to the penthouse.”

“Is the elevator out of order?” Violet asked. “I'm good with mechanical devices. I'd be happy to look at it.”

“That’s a very kind and unusual offer, but it's not out of order, it’s just _out_. I'll phone the penthouse and tell them to expect you within the hour.”

The three Baudelaires started to make their way up the stairs. Violet and Klaus agreed to take turns carrying Sunny, while Lizzie and Oliver flew beside them in their owl and sparrow forms respectively.

“People who live in penthouses are usually rich and powerful,” Violet observed, as they climbed. Klaus sensed what she was trying to do- she was trying to take his mind off worrying about Duncan, even just for a little while.

“Well, I hope they can help us find the Quagmires, then,” he replied. “We don’t have a clue where Olaf could've taken them.”

“Dark,” Sunny added, by which she meant, _We’re in the dark._

They certainly were- both in the literal sense, because their surroundings were so devoid of actual light, and in the figurative sense, because there were so many things they didn’t know. They didn’t know where Duncan or Isadora were, they didn’t know what VFD was, or why their friends had shouted it when they were being taken away, or how useful their new guardians would be when they eventually got up to the penthouse and met them.

Violet

Finally, finally they reached the top floor. Violet had thought it might not be too bad, since they had spent two weeks running laps, and they were in pretty good shape. But after perhaps the tenth floor, Violet’s legs started to hurt, and after that she stopped counting how many floors there were, staying focused on getting to the penthouse.

“That’s odd,” Klaus noted, looking around the large landing at the top of the stairs. “There’s two sets of elevator doors, while on every other floor there’s just one.”

Before Violet could respond, the large door to the penthouse apartment opened. A dark-haired man with a black pinstriped suit and a small moustache appeared, smiling warmly at the children. His dæmon, a beagle, wagged her tail in greeting as well.

“You must be the Baudelaires, welcome!” he said, letting them into the large, lavishly decorated apartment. “My name is Jerome Squalor, and this is Charlotte- we are so happy that you’ve come to stay with us!”

“How do you do, Mr. Squalor?” Violet asked, politely.

“You must be out of breath from that climb- luckily, I can think of two things to do about that. One, you can stop calling me Mr. Squalor and start calling me Jerome, and number two, I am gonna make you a nice, cold martini. Come this way!”

He led them over to a small table in the middle of the room, where several martini glasses and a jug of water stood.

“A martini?” Klaus asked, confused. “Isn’t that an alcoholic drink?”

“Usually it is,” Jerome agreed. “But alcoholic martinis are out, and aqueous martinis are in.”

“Aqueous martinis?” Klaus asked, still not any less confused.

“It’s just cold water in a fancy glass with an olive in it,” Jerome explained.

“We’ve never had aqueous martinis before, but we’ll try them,” Violet replied.

“You’re adventurous,” Charlotte commented. “Just like your parents.”

Violet watched as Lizzie and Oliver shifted into a cat and a wolf cub, better to play with their new guardian’s dæmon. She thought about setting Prospero down among them, before deciding to wait a bit, just until she had more of a feel for the situation, and how safe they were here.

“I remember when we went up to Mount Fraught and did high-impact bird-watching,” Jerome said, handing Violet and Klaus a martini glass each.

“How many years ago was that?” Violet asked.

It took her a moment to work out how best to hold the martini glass, before she decided holding it by the stem was probably the best solution. A quick glance at Klaus told her that her brother hadn’t come to the same conclusion. He held it by the small circle on the bottom at first, then seemed to change his mind, opting to hold it by the rim instead. Violet shook her head, speechless.

“Was Montgomery Montgomery there?” Klaus asked, as if he wasn’t carrying a glass by its rim like an idiot. “Or Josephine Anwhistle?”

“Who?” Jerome asked, shaking his head. “No, I never met any of your previous guardians.”

“You don’t happen to own a spyglass?” Violet asked. Jerome shook his head again.

“No, but one of the eagles flew off with my best pair of binoculars that day- I was not happy, I can tell you that much.” He was quiet for a moment, preparing a couple more martinis. “And then, soon after that, I lost touch with your parents.” He shrugged, like that wasn’t a big deal. “You know how it is- you get older, you find different interests, you marry a woman who despises all of your old friends. But there's no need to discuss such unpleasantness now. I wanted to adopt you the moment I heard about the fire. Unfortunately, it was impossible.”

“Orphans were out then,” declared a voice from above them. “But now they're in.”

Klaus

Their other new guardian was a lady with shoulder-length pale blonde hair in loose waves, wearing a white pinstripe suit with a matching pencil skirt. Klaus couldn't quite see what her dæmon was through the railing, but he guessed that he was a white bird- possibly a goose.

“Good evening,” she said, smiling benevolently down at everyone.

“It’s mid-morning, my precious,” Jerome replied.

“I’m Esmé Gigi Genevieve Squalor, the city’s sixth most important financial adviser.” she said, as though he hadn’t spoken. She started to walk down the stairs, and once she reached the bottom, Klaus saw that her dæmon was indeed a white goose. “Even though I am unbelievably wealthy, you may call me Esmé. I'll learn your names later. I am very happy you're here- when all my friends hear that I have three real live orphans, they'll be sick with jealousy, won't they, Jerome?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Jerome replied. “I don't like to hear that anybody's sick.”

“You'll have such a glamorous life with me that your friends' eyes will roll back in their heads,” Esmé said, once again ignoring what Jerome had said. “You will be exposed to all the innest restaurants, the innest boutiques, premieres, cockfights, gallery openings!”

“What my wife means,” Jerome said, “is that we hope you'll feel safe and secure here.”

“Jerome, don't tell them silly things like that,” Esmé countered. “Okay, children, here are things you _should_ know. Dark is in, light is out. Stairs are in, elevators are out. Pinstripe suits are…”

“In,” Klaus finished, guessing where this was going.

“Yes,” Esmé agreed. “And those horrible clothes you're wearing are out,” she added, gesturing to their Prufrock Prep uniforms.

“What my wife means is we hope you'll feel comfortable while you're here,” Jerome said, perhaps trying to balance out his wife’s shallow priorities. “I feel awful about all the terrible experiences you've had- this entire time, we could've been taking care of you.”

“It couldn't be helped,” Esmé said, taking a sip of her martini. “When something's out, it's out. And orphans used to be out.”

“We're glad you're interested in orphans now, because we are concerned about some of our friends,” Klaus said, seeing that they may be able to take advantage of Esmé’s priorities in order to help their friends.

“Oh, yes, the Quagmires,” Jerome replied. “I’m sure that the three of you are anxious for them to be rescued.”

“Yeah,” Klaus agreed. “We are anxious.”

“Well, if there's one good thing about being rich and powerful, it's you don't have to be anxious,” Esmé replied. “After they're found, the Quagmires will live right here with us. The more orphans the better- it's handy to have a few spares, just in case.”

“Rest at ease, Baudelaires!” Jerome said, for once ignoring what his wife had said, rather than the other way around. “You live in a penthouse now, you’re never gonna want for anything again!”

“All we want is for our friends to be safe,” Violet said.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll hear good news soon,” Jerome replied.

Just then, there was a knock at the apartment door. Esmé went to answer it, and came back clutching a newspaper, studying the front page.

“Big news!” she cried. “Big, fat, fantastic news about what we were _just_ talking about!”

“Has Olaf been captured?” Violet asked.

“Have the Quagmires been rescued?” Klaus asked.

“Safe?” Sunny asked, by which she meant, _Are we all gonna be safe now?_

“Better!” Esmé said, turning the paper so they could all see it. “Dark is out, light is in!” Klaus rolled his eyes. That was _it?_ Seriously? “We have to turn on lamps and open curtains before anyone sees! Jerome, flip the light switches in the west wing. Baudelaires, open the curtains in the living room.” She pulled a small switch out of a nearby drawer and handed it to Violet. “I’ll run around in panicky circles.”

Sunny

As Sunny followed her siblings into the living room, she absently stroked Oliver’s grey-brown fur. She wasn’t sad to be away from Prufrock Prep- all that walking in circles, and tapping away at the typewriter, and feeling sleepy all the time… Hopefully she wouldn't have to go to school ever again. But she was sad that Duncan and Isadora were gone, especially because Olaf had taken them away. What if he put them in a bird cage, like he had with her? What if he made them do difficult chores, like he had with all three Baudelaires? What if he- no, she couldn't think about it. He couldn't hurt them the way he’d hurt Uncle Monty and Auntie Josephine, could he?

“Something tells me the Squalors won’t be as helpful as we need them to be,” Violet said, bringing Sunny back to the present.

“Lumber mill,” Sunny observed. The way Esmé kept not letting Jerome say things, plus the way Jerome kept trying to be nice to them while Esmé didn’t try, reminded her of another pair of guardians they’d had recently, before coming to Prufrock.

“It is a bit familiar, you’re right,” Violet said. “You think we can trust Jerome, then?”

“Suppose,” she replied, with a small shrug. “Depends,” she added. After all, just because someone was nice, that didn’t mean you could depend on them to always be there, and always do the most helpful thing. Sunny knew enough about grown-ups by now to know that.

“Meanwhile,” Klaus pointed out, “Olaf could be getting further away.”

Klaus pressed the button on the small object Esmé had given, and the curtains swung open. Standing behind them was a tall, skinny man in an expensive-looking dark grey suit, with a dæmon that Sunny recognised straight away- a scarlet salamander.

“Fuck,” she said, by which she meant, _You have got to be fucking kidding me._


	7. Chapter Seven: In Which Violet And Klaus Explore Their New Home

Chapter Seven: In Which Violet And Klaus Explore Their New Home

Sunny

“Well, that’s no way to talk to your guardian,” Olaf said, hopping down from the window ledge.

“No garden!” Sunny pointed out, by which she meant, _Good thing you’re not our guardian any more, then!_

“I have no idea what she just said,” Olaf said, shaking his head. “Does this seem like a nightmare? A bad dream? Because that’s the effect I was going for. Well, I have nightmares, too, orphans- I wake up in the middle of the night screaming, and the only thing that comforts me is knowing the three of you will soon be screaming. Just like another set of wealthy orphans that happen to be in my clutches.”

“Duncan and Isadora,” Violet said. “Where are they?”

“You mean you don’t know?” Olaf asked, which was really not the answer Sunny had been hoping for. She’d hoped that Olaf might be stupid enough to just tell them where the Quagmires were. “I thought that everybody could smell wealthy orphans when they were in arm’s reach.” That was a silly way of putting it- if you couldn’t actually reach out for something, it wasn’t in arm’s reach. “Well, not to worry. Soon all of you orphans will be in my clutches. Quagmires in one clutch, and you, Baudelaires, in the other. This pesky citywide manhunt may have foreshadowed me from taking them far away, but not for long.”

“You mean _forestalled,”_ Klaus replied. “But we're gonna stop you.” Sunny smiled at that- of course Klaus would have a plan to get their friends back. Maybe this time they would let Sunny help too. “Mr and Mrs Squalor?” Klaus shouted. “Olaf is here!”

That was it? They were just going to tell their guardians what was going on? When had that ever ended well?

“What?” Jerome called. “It can’t be- did I hear you right?”

“How did he get past the doorman?” Esmé asked, and Sunny heard her clicky shoes before she saw her come into the room. She wasn’t sure what those kinds of shoes were called, but she did know that they didn’t make a very nice sound on the floor. “How did he slip past the citywide manhunt?”

“Where is he?” Jerome asked, as the two grown-ups came into the living room. Quickly, Olaf pulled a rolled up piece of paper from behind his back, and unrolled it.

“He’s right here!” Violet replied, pointing to Olaf, who held the piece of paper in front of his face.

Sunny noticed that it was one of those posters that had been outside, the ones with Olaf’s face on them and the word _Wanted_ on it in big letters. That seemed a bit silly- why would anyone want Count Olaf?

“It is true, please, what the babushka is saying,” Olaf said, in another silly, fake voice. “Count Olaf, please, is right here.” He pointed to the poster. He’d put on a pair of sunglasses, which covered up his eyes and his stupid eyebrow. “This poster is limited edition, please, and is autographed by the star of this month's city-wide manhunt.”

“How in the world did you manage that?” Esmé asked.

“Please, pretty lady, I am foreigner. We have secret ways,” Olaf replied, smiling at her.

“Esmé,” Jerome said, looking between Olaf and his wife. “Who is this man?”

“Jerome, I told you, Gunther was coming over today, and that he might need to hide behind the curtains,” Esmé replied.

“Oh, yes! It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance!” Jerome said.

Sunny looked between the three grown-ups. How had Olaf not only beat them to their new home, but had already gotten Esmé to believe in his newest identity? That had to be some kind of record. At least with Auntie Josephine, they’d had a bit of time before _Captain Sham_ had popped up to ruin everything.

“Hello, please,” Olaf said. “I hope you'll forgive the way I am talking, but I am, please, a foreigner. Very nice to meet the husband of pretty lady Esmé and three hideous children. Is _hideous_ the right word for what it is I am trying to say?”

“Pobbly,” Sunny said, which meant something like, _Yeah, probably, knowing your view on kids._

“So foreign, so in,” Esmé said. _In_ didn’t sound like a word any more, she had said it so much in the last hour or so.

“This is Count Olaf, and I don’t mean the poster,” Violet tried again.

“Beautiful, no?” Olaf asked, gesturing to the poster again. “I can see that Count Olaf is as handsome as a noble steed riding on the back of a beautiful princess. His legendary handsomeness is celebrated in special weekly holidays in my faraway land, please.”

“What _faraway land_ is that?” Klaus asked.

“ _Far away,_ ” Olaf replied, with dramatic emphasis.

“Well, I don’t think Count Olaf could get very _far away,”_ Violet countered. “Not with the law closing in.”

“Oh,” Olaf said, his smile becoming more of a smirk. “But think about the poor Quagmire twins, and their sparkly sapphires.”

“They're not twins,” Klaus countered.

“If this Count Olaf is somehow recognized and taken to jail,” Olaf continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “The little Quaggies will never be found in their, how do you say in your language, super-duper hiding place, and they will starve to death like castaways on desert island or vegetarian restaurant, please.”

“Oh, let’s not talk about depressing things like others being kidnapped,” Esmé said. “Let’s talk about exciting things that are happening to me, like the In Auction we’re planning.” Sunny frowned, wondering what an auction was. “The In Auction is happening on the innest day, tomorrow, at the innest auction house, Veblen Hall, and is being hosted by the innest auctioneer, this foreign man named Gunther,” Esmé explained. “Just look, look, look, look. Just look at this glossy but classy catalogue,” she added, handing Klaus a thin book with shiny-looking pages. “This auction is going to be so fashionable that people are going to have heart attacks and hives. Of course, all the money goes to a good cause.”

“Which good cause?” Jerome asked.

“Me,” Olaf and Esmé said at the same time.

“Every last penny goes to me,” Esmé said, firmly.

“Yes, but there will be auctioneer's fee and incidentals, so…” Olaf added.

“Shouldn't we give the proceeds to those who need it? Perhaps those starving people we were reading about?” Jerome suggested.

“Starving people can't eat money,” Esmé countered. “Plus, if we give money to poor people, they won't be poor any more, and we won't have anyone to feel sorry for.”

Sunny wondered if she had any idea how mean and nasty that sounded. Needing people to feel sorry for was no reason to not help others if you could. If you had more money than you needed, then you should give that to people who didn’t have money, it just made sense.

“That reminds me, you poor wealthy orphans, go far away, please. Esmé and I have to talk big fat business,” Olaf said.

“Yes!” Esmé replied. “Jerome, I need you to put the children into pinstripe suits before anyone sees them in those clothes and my life is ruined.”

“Kim,” Sunny said, by which she meant, _Esmé, there’s people who are genuinely suffering._ Then she allowed Jerome to lead her away from Olaf and Esmé.

Violet

“Come this way,” Jerome said, leading them through the corridors of the apartment. Even the walls were covered in black and white stripy paper, she noted. “Now, the Duchess of Winnipeg once stayed in this very room- or, it might have been that one.”

“How many rooms are there?” Klaus asked, pulling his dark blue notebook out of his pocket and taking notes.

“Seventy-one, I think,” Jerome replied. “I think that’s right, anyway. Of course, I don’t know what’s in half of them. The other day I found a kitchen I swear I’d never seen before- the omelette was really good, too.”

“So what your saying is, the penthouse has a lot of places you could hide?” Violet asked.

“Oh, I love hide and seek!” Jerome replied. “But this place is so big, I thought you'd like to bunk together for now- after all, children could get lost in this penthouse for ages.” He led them into a dressing room, with three screens already set up so they could change in privacy, then handed them each a flat box, covered in yet more striped paper. “Here's your pinstripe suits. I'm going to make another round of martinis while you three change.” He went to leave the room, turning in the doorway just before he closed the doors. “I am so glad you're here,” he said, leaving the room, Charlotte trotting at his heels.

Once he was gone, Violet and Klaus picked a divider each. Violet would help Sunny with her suit once she was done getting changed- hopefully it wouldn't be too big for her.

“I can’t believe Olaf found us so quickly,” she said, surprised to find that the suit fit her pretty well. The sleeves of the jacket were a little long, but that wasn’t so bad.

“That must mean the Quagmires are close,” Klaus replied. “He said they were within arm’s reach, because the manhunt forestalled him.”

“Shadfore,” Sunny pointed out, by which she meant, _Well, technically he said it foreshadowed him, but that’s neither here nor there._

“Do you think he could be hiding in this apartment?” Violet asked. “I mean, Jerome did say that he didn’t know what’s in every room, and that children could stay lost here for ages.”

“Esmé invited Gunther here- do you think they could be working together?” Klaus asked.

“No way- Esmé’s already rich, she’d have nothing to gain,” Violet pointed out.

“That’s true,” Klaus replied. “Plus, she’s already married- even if she is falling for Count Olaf, it’s not like he could marry her or anything.”

“Jerome,” Sunny pointed out, which meant something like, _Unless something happened to Jerome, right?_

Violet looked at Klaus from across their dividers- their sister was right. They had to make sure nothing happened to Jerome, at least until they could figure out how to stop Olaf and rescue their friends.

Klaus

Once they had changed into their suits-which fit surprisingly well, including Sunny's- Klaus and his sisters made their way back into the living room. Klaus worried they might get lost, but thankfully, they were able to retrace the same steps Jerome had led them along earlier, and find their way.

“You keep them distracted,” Violet said, drawing her ribbon from her suit pocket. “I’ll see what I can find.”

“Got it,” Klaus replied, though in all honesty, he wanted to be the one to do the searching- if Duncan were in this place, Klaus wanted to be the one to find him.

As Klaus entered the living room, Sunny following beside him, he noticed that Jerome was standing beneath one of the vast chandeliers, and that Olaf was waving his cane around, dangerously close to the rope which was holding the chandelier up.

“Would pretty lady Esmé and husband like to see party trick?” he asked, pressing a button at the top of the cane and producing a small blade at the other end. He was aiming the blade straight at the connecting rope- one slice would probably be enough to send the chandelier crashing down on Jerome’s head.

“No, stop!” Klaus shouted, giving Jerome a hard shove. Luckily, he was able to catch his guardian by surprise, knocking him onto a nearby sofa and out of harm’s way.

“What are you doing?” Esmé demanded. “This sofa belonged to the King of Arizona, you don’t recline on it!”

“Sorry, darling,” Jerome said, quickly climbing off the sofa and getting to his feet.

“But Gunther… and the chandelier…” Klaus tried to explain, though as usual it didn’t seem to matter.

“Gunther was just showing us some of his cane tricks, that earned him a bronze medal for his country's non-trademark-violating version of the Olympics,” Esmé explained. “Weren’t you, Gunther?”

“Indeed,” Gunther replied. “In my country, children do not interrupt married couple and foreign man turning tricks.”

“Let's forgive them this once, seeing as they've finally put on some in suits,” Esmé replied- as though they had been here for a week instead of an hour or two, and had insisted on wearing their school uniforms the whole time.

“Where is the other one, please?” Olaf asked, apparently only now noticing there were two Baudelaires in the room, instead of three.

“My sister's exploring,” Klaus explained. “She said she wants to see every inch of this penthouse.”

“I hope she’s careful,” Jerome replied. “Without a system in a place like this, a person could easily get lost.”

“I wouldn't worry about that- Violet’s very resourceful.” He paused, an idea forming in his head. It would allow him to kill two birds with one stone- to search the rest of the apartment, while also keeping the adults busy. “I’d like to see the rest of the apartment too, actually.”

“No, no, please,” Olaf replied. “I do not approve of small child browsing penthouse.”

 _Small child? I’m nearly thirteen, for God’s sake,_ Klaus thought, resisting the urge to shake his head. Olaf’s reluctance to let him go exploring was making him wonder if Duncan and Isadora really were hiding somewhere in this apartment, so he would have to ignore Olaf for now and press his actual guardians on the matter.

“It shouldn't take long,” he said. “This penthouse only has, what, two or three rooms?”

“Two or three rooms?” Esmé exclaimed. “ _Two or three rooms?_ Step this way, orphan boy, and prepare to be so dazzled your eyes will turn black!”

As Esmé led them out of the living room so that they could begin their tour, Olaf grabbed Klaus’s arm.

“I know what your sister is up to,” he hissed.

“And we know what you’re up to, and you won’t get away with it,” Klaus replied.

“Really?” Olaf asked, and Klaus wondered if he was rolling his eyes beneath his sunglasses. “Have you seen my press clippings? I could get away with murder- again.”

“This is the formal dining room,” Esmé said, leading them through an opulent room dominated by a finely carved oak table and several fancy chairs, with a couple of large, ornate vases on top of the table.

“I love these vases, don’t you?” Jerome asked.

“They are rather large,” Olaf observed. “Sturdy enough to cause a fatal concussion, no?”

“This is the semiformal dining room,” Esmé continued, taking them through a room that was about the same size as the first, but decidedly less fancy. The vases were smaller, and the chairs were plain.

“These vases are cute, too,” Jerome said, giving one a little tap.

“Yes, but still heavy enough for a good whacking,” Olaf replied.

So far, Jerome seemed to be missing these threats against his life and safety- though when Klaus looked down at Charlotte, he could see that she was cowering slightly, and her ears were tucked lower than they had been earlier. She was showing a degree of fear, even if Jerome was keeping up a more cheerful front.

Esmé took them through a few more rooms- the informal dining room, the games room, the bowling alley, and her powder room- before leading them into a separate wing altogether. So far, there was no sign of Duncan or Isadora- or of Violet, for that matter. Though Klaus suspected his sister was close by- he’d seen chalk marks on a few of the door frames, presumably put there by Violet so she wouldn’t forget which rooms she’d checked.

“Now, in this wing, I have a number of rooms where I display my most expensive, most in objects,” Esmé explained. “This is an enormous basket of rutabagas, the innest root vegetable,” she continued, taking them past the aforementioned basket. “This is a collection of extremely long rubber bands, and this is Spain's largest handkerchief.”

She stopped beside what appeared to be a large handkerchief with a pattern of Spanish flags on it.

“This looks large enough for, how do you say, suffocating rich person,” Olaf said.

“What was that?” Jerome asked.

“Nothing,” Olaf replied, then pretended to sneeze, possibly to distract from what he’d said.

“Bless you,” Esmé said, her goose-dæmon flapping his wings in sympathy.

“Thank you, pretty lady,” Olaf replied. “I must be allergic to something in this room, that is not large handkerchief or you two adult people.”

“The orphans, perhaps?” Esmé suggested, and Olaf nodded.

“Yes, that must be it- I must be allergic to the orphans.”

“Is it their dust?"

“Yes, yes, or their ashes- they clog up my whole… what’s the word?”

“Glands?” Jerome suggested.

“Life,” Olaf finished.

Klaus didn’t even have the energy to explain how ridiculous that was, so he decided not to dignify any of it with a response.

Violet

While Klaus and Sunny kept the adults busy, Violet had taken herself on her own tour of the apartment. Unfortunately, she hadn’t found any sign of her friends, or anything else of much note for that matter. There had been a moment when she had thought she’d found a possible hiding space- one of the rooms had contained a large wardrobe, big enough to stash two kids of roughly the same size, but instead it had only contained several racks of pastel-coloured dresses, which must’ve been in at some point, and were perhaps being kept aside in case they became in again.

She had almost been caught once, in Esmé’s powder room. Olaf had come back in, after the others had left, and she’d had to hide behind the full length mirror until he left again. She might as well not have bothered going into that room- there hadn’t been anything interesting in there, apart from a tea set that was missing its sugar bowl, and probably should be put somewhere safer, before any more pieces of it could get lost too.

Finally, she joined her siblings and her guardians, and pulled the ribbon from her hair, tying it round her wrist in case she needed it again.

“Ah, we found Violet!” Jerome said, when he saw her. Charlotte wagged her tail in greeting, and Prospero waved a paw back at her.

“How was the tour?” Violet asked Klaus.

“Thorough,” Klaus replied. “And fruitless,” he added, when the adults were out of earshot.

“So we’re right back where we started.”

“Don’t be silly- we started in the dining room!” Esmé replied. “Speaking of dining, I am so hungry, I could chew off your arm. Luckily, the innest restaurant is only half a block away.”

 _Does she think of anything besides what’s in and what isn’t?_ Violet wondered. While it was good that there was a restaurant so close by that met Esmé’s standards, it didn’t really seem fair that they all had to go along with those standards in every area- they were already dressed the way she wanted them to be dressed, why couldn't that be enough?

“We’ll take the block-long limousine to get there,” Esmé continued. “Think of the publicity! We could get our picture in the paper!”

Violet rolled her eyes- she would be quite happy to never feature in the Daily Punctilio for the rest of her life, but of course Esmé would feel differently about that.

“Quick, let’s take one now!” her guardian said, going over to one of the cupboards and producing a camera.

“I’m not sure the Baudelaires would…” Jerome began. Esmé just rolled her eyes, handing him the camera.

“Kids, come on,” she said, gesturing for Violet and her siblings to stand beside her and Olaf. “Orphans in the photo will generate excitement, like celebrities or sled dogs,” she added, as they all got into position. “There we go, that’s lovely.” She looked at the camera her husband was holding, and smiled. “Make sure you get the pinstripes in, Jerome! Say cheese, everyone!”

With the picture taken, there was nothing to do but head downstairs to lunch. Before they left, though, Jerome paused, to look out of one of the large windows in the living room.

“Look- they’re cutting down all the trees on our street.”

Violet went over to look, and sure enough, far, far below, the large trees, which looked no bigger than paper-clips from up here, were being chopped down by little green dots.

“Of course they're cutting them down,” Esmé said, setting a large black hat on her head. “Dark is out, light is in.”

Violet frowned- while those trees had made the street so dark and gloomy, it seemed a shame to cut them all down just because the trends had changed.

“If this is what happens when dark becomes out,” Prospero whispered, “I’m not sure I want to know what will happen when orphans become out.” Violet couldn't help agreeing with him.


	8. Chapter Eight: In Which The Baudelaires Engage In Some Very Fancy Dining

Klaus

It took much less time to get down the stairs than it had to get up them- though that wasn’t particularly reassuring, since they would have to climb back up once they returned to the apartment building later.

“Have a wonderful lunch, Mrs. Squalor,” the doorman said, as they entered the lobby. “Take care out there, though- there is still a manhunt going on.”

“Thank you, sir,” Klaus said, when he realised that Esmé was just breezing past as if the doorman hadn’t said anything. “We’ll keep that in mind.”

The six of them all piled into a ridiculously long limousine, which seemed like way too much considering that Esmé had said the restaurant was only a block away.

“Limousine,” Esmé said, once they’d all taken their seats. “Corner of Dark and Stormy, step on it.”

“My name’s actually Abraham,” the limousine driver said.

“I love that new coat,” Olaf said, as though the driver hadn’t said anything.

“Yes, isn’t it in?” Esmé asked. She was wearing a black cloak, which appeared to be made from feathers. “Imprisoned nuns made it from the feathers of a rare species of bat.”

“Bats don't have feathers,” Klaus pointed out.

“Not this species,” Esmé replied. “Not any more, at least!”

They reached the corner in a couple of minutes, and Abraham hopped out so that he could open their doors.

“The other side!” Esmé snapped. Abraham moved round to the other side of the limo, and pulled the doors open on that side.

“You’re sure you searched the entire penthouse?” Klaus asked, once the adults had gotten out of the car.

“I’m sure,” Violet replied. “I had a system to keep track. So, if the Quagmires really are in arm’s reach…”

“Then they must be somewhere else in the building.”

The restaurant they were standing in front of, Herring Houdini, looked as though it had been slapped together in a few minutes. The sign declaring its name was scrawled onto a piece of cardboard that had been stuck on the door-frame, and the windows were all boarded up.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Lizzie muttered, as Esmé led them into the restaurant.

Inside, they were greeted by the two white-faced women, though Klaus could see the rest of Olaf’s troupe milling about the restaurant entrance.

“Welcome to Herring Houdini!” One of the white-faced women greeted.

“A totally legitimate business,” her sister continued.

“With no secret agenda behind it,” the first one concluded. Klaus wondered if it was too soon to go back to the apartment.

“Welcome to Herring Houdini, the home of pickled fish,” added the dark-haired henchperson.

“Everything has been prepared for you,” said one of the white-faced women.

“And very quickly,” her sister added.

“For the children, we offer a tour of the kitchen,” the hook-handed man said, gesturing in what Klaus assumed was the general direction of the kitchens. “And for the adults, we have…”

“Vodka martinis,” the bald man said, holding out two glasses by their stems.

On seeing this, Klaus now felt a bit silly for holding the glass he’d been given earlier by its rim, but there was no time to dwell on that feeling too much. Right now, he had a bigger problem.

“We can’t eat here,” he said. It might not do much good, but he had to at least try. Nothing good could come from staying in a restaurant run by such detestable people.

“This sounds perfect, yes,” Olaf replied, his scarlet salamander sticking her tongue out at Klaus like she was making fun of him.

“Well, I don’t like to argue,” Jerome said, “so I’ll let my wife decide.”

They all looked at Esmé, who had a look of pure disgust on her face. Klaus allowed himself to smile, hoping this might mean she was going to insist they leave and go somewhere else.

“Vodka in a martini?” she asked, glaring at the bald man and at the drinks he held. “Are we living in _garbage?”_

“Thank God for her vanity,” Lizzie muttered, as Esmé led them out of the restaurant.

They all piled into the limousine once again, and for a moment Klaus hoped they’d just go back to the apartment.

“Limousine, take us to a restaurant that is _actually_ in,” she demanded.

Rather than start to drive them anywhere, though, Abraham just opened the doors on the other side of the limousine. They all climbed out, and looked up at a restaurant with the name Cafe Salmonella. It had a large red sign with the name in flashing yellow letters, and looked much more like an actual restaurant.

“Pretty lady, why don’t you eat here with your boring husband?” Olaf asked. “I’ll take the children back to the herring restaurant for… how do you say, hors d'oeuvre.”

“Don’t be silly, we’re not driving all the way back there,” Esmé replied. “Just look at this place- the Daily Punctilio says that it’s the innest thing since that bakery on Ninth Street.”

“You mean Sliced Bread?” Jerome asked. He looked up at the sign. “Cafe Salmonella it is, then.”

“You’re going to love the theme,” Esmé assured them, leading the way into the restaurant.

Sunny

So far, Sunny was _not_ loving the theme of Cafe Salmonella, not one little bit, despite what Esmé had said. The entire place seemed to be centred around salmons- even the waiters were dressed up as salmons. Was this what being a fancy rich person meant, eating lots of salmon while people walked around in silly costumes? If so, Sunny wasn’t sure if she wanted to be a fancy rich person.

The place wasn’t all bad, though. Once they had all sat down- Sunny and her siblings on one side of the table, the grown-ups on the other- a waiter came up to their table- a very familiar waiter, with a very familiar dæmon trotting at his heels.

“Hello, I’m Larry, your waiter,” said Larry, their waiter. “Welcome to Cafe Salmonella, the innest restaurant, and the only one serving an all-salmon menu, including beverages and table linens.”

“It's that waiter,” Violet whispered, as Larry passed around six menus. “He's everywhere we go, he's always trying to help.”

Sunny was about to bite the menu, to see if it would taste of salmon, when Olaf stood up.

“I, um, I am feeling queasy, please, I must run back to pretty lady’s apartment right away!”

“Nonsense!” Larry replied. “We've had the menu translated for our foreign guests.”

“What language did you have it translated into?” Olaf asked.

“The one you speak most fluently.”

“Well, well, I speak all of them hella fluently, so…”

“Then there's nothing to worry about,” Larry said. “Now, take a seat, and your food will be brought to you shortly.”

Olaf shook his head, but took a seat beside Esmé. Sunny bit the menu- which did not taste of salmon- and wondered how long they were going to be stuck here.

“May I start you off with still or sparkling salmon-flavored water?” Larry asked, returning to their table with two jugs, each containing a pink liquid.

“Salmon-flavored?” Esmé asked, smiling. “You are making my mouth water and turn pink!”

There was quite a bit of pink in this place- restaurant, Sunny corrected herself. That was what everyone else was calling it. Sunny was reminded of Carmelita Spats, one of their former classmates from Prufrock, who hadn’t been so bad in the end. She might appreciate all this pink more than Sunny did.

“How do you make it salmon-flavored?” Jerome asked, bringing Sunny back to the moment.

“We put salmon in it,” Larry explained. He had a weird way of saying the word “salmon,” like it was meant to have an L in it that everybody else just forgot about.

“In that case, I'll just have regular water,” Jerome said.

“So will we,” Violet added.

“Nonsense!” Esmé exclaimed. “What if someone sees you? Regular water isn't in!”

“It's the primary ingredient in aqueous martinis,” Klaus pointed out.

“The young people might enjoy playing along with the theme of Café Salmonella,” Larry said, scribbling something onto a napkin and holding it out so only Sunny and her siblings could see. “Its virulently fishy décor may be of particular interest,” he added, pointing to the three letters on the napkin.

Sunny could see them clear enough, but it took a moment for her to realise what they were. _V is for violin, F is for frog, D is for dog… V.F.D,_ she realised, remembering what her siblings had told her about the secret the Quagmires had shared with them as they were being driven away. Speaking of the Quagmires...

“We just wish our friends could be here enjoying it with us,” Violet said.

“That's understandable,” Larry replied. “It's quite a _quagmire_ to be stuck in a fashionable apartment while others are enjoying the _escape_ of a glamorous meal.”

“Can you be more specific?” Klaus asked.

Under the table, Oliver jumped down from where he was seated on Sunny’s lap. Sunny wondered what he was doing, but decided to wait until he was finished before she asked.

“Sit tight for a long lunch, and everything will be taken care of by your loyal wait staff,” Larry said, making a strange gesture with one hand. Two of his fingers were bent into a sort of eye shape, while the little finger was held straight up, and the other two were held at a sort of angle. It took Sunny way too long to realise that the gesture was meant to look like the strange eye that seemed to be everywhere. “I suggest a 46-course tasting menu designed for persons living in a 46-story building. It is a nice, slow, leisurely meal that keeps people in their seats until everyone has been successfully rescued.”

Up until now, Larry had seemed to be talking in a strange kind of code, and Sunny hadn’t known what he was actually saying. But now she thought she had an idea. Was someone else going to try and rescue Duncan and Isadora? Had they managed to work out where they were being hidden?

Before anyone else could respond, another group came up to their table. There was Mr. Poe, wearing a pinstriped tie and his usual grey suit, Mrs. Poe, wielding her camera, and the statue lady from Uncle Monty’s maze. Sunny had almost forgotten about her- it had been a very, very long time since she’d last seen her, after all.

“ _Rich People Have Lunch!”_ Mrs. Poe exclaimed, snapping a photo of the Baudelaires and their guardians. “Wait until the readers of the Daily Punctilio see this!” Did the readers of the Daily Punctilio have nothing better to do? “Esmé Squalor dining at Café Salmonella with three orphans and a handsome foreign man.”

“And her husband,” Jerome added.

“Not pictured,” Esmé muttered.

“Je m'appelle…” Olaf said, standing up and kissing Mrs. Poe’s hand.

“Ooh! Continental,” Mrs. Poe replied, smiling. Sunny rolled her eyes- why were grown-ups always so _weird?_

“Baudelaires, so happy to see you, and in such stylish circumstances,” Mr. Poe said, focusing on Sunny and her siblings. “An unemployed librarian came into my office who had her doubts about you living in high society. Now that I see you eating in a stylish restaurant, I know you'll be properly cared for by the city's seventh most powerful financial adviser.”

“Sixth!” Esmé snapped, sounding just as insulted by that as she had been by those drinks Olaf’s henchman had offered earlier. “ _Sixth!_ ”

Oliver, meanwhile, had climbed back into Sunny’s lap. So far, he hadn’t told her what he’d been doing, though he had promised to fill her in when they were alone.

“Mr. Poe, it's important we speak with you,” Violet said.

“It's important I speak with the lady with flashy camera,” Olaf said, before Mr. Poe could reply. “It's true that you're deciding which restaurant is in and which is out?” he asked Mrs. Poe.

“The Daily Punctilio has an impeccable reputation,” she replied. “We predicted the outcome of two of the last nine elections.”

Was that a good thing? Two didn’t seem like a very big number, but maybe nine wasn’t very big either, so maybe getting two out of nine things right was a good thing.

“Would you like a hot tip on the next restaurant to be in?”

“From a handsome foreign man? Do tell!”

“Right this way,” Olaf said, leading Mrs. Poe away. Sunny frowned- she wasn’t sure what Olaf was planning, but she didn’t like it.

“If you're here, Mr. Poe, then who's looking for the Quagmires?” Klaus asked.

“An excellent question, Klaus,” the statue lady replied. She wore a grey jacket and a black hat, her butterfly-dæmon resting on the top.

“You remember my administrative assistant, Jacquelyn,” Mr. Poe said.

 _So that was the statue lady’s name_ , Sunny thought.

“Of course,” Violet said. “We've seen her in a movie, and a labyrinth.”

Sunny remembered the labyrinth encounter, though it felt like it had happened a very long time ago, and she sort of remembered the movie- it had had something to do with zombies, hadn’t it?

“And in my office,” Mr. Poe said, like that was the only place they could’ve possibly seen Jacquelyn. “She asked for a lunch to celebrate Secretary's Day.”

“I was in the mood for some _vigorously fancy dining,_ ” Jacquelyn said, making eye contact with each of the children in turn as she said those last three words. “So we can all sit back and relax, because everything is going according to plan.”

“It is?” Klaus asked.

They were all desperate to find the Quagmires, but Sunny had noticed that Klaus seemed especially keen to rescue them. She wondered if it was because of Duncan- Klaus did seem to like him a lot. All of that stuff sounded quite silly to Sunny, but maybe it would make sense when she was older.

Violet

Larry hadn’t even brought their first course to the table when Olaf returned. Violet had hoped he would stay away for longer- maybe for the rest of their lives- but clearly that wasn’t happening.

“I'm back! Oh, did I miss the entire lunch?” he asked, taking a seat beside Esmé again.

“You didn't even miss the first course, which is creamy salmon soup with a hint of salmon and the eye of a salmon hidden in the bottom,” Larry said, setting down a bowl of soup in front of each of them.

Maybe by the time they were done here, salmon wouldn't even sound like a word any more. Not that Violet intended for them to be here that long. They had to get back to 667 Dark Avenue- whatever Larry, Jacquelyn and their associates were planning, Violet doubted it would actually succeed, but if it did, she wanted to be there for her friends.

Larry continued to place salmon-based dish after salmon-based dish in front of them, and with each new plate of pink food, Violet felt more and more trapped. How were they ever meant to get away when there were so many people around, and with Larry in particular seeming determined to keep everybody in their seats?

If only someone would realise that Gunther and Olaf were the same person, and preferably not at the last minute, when the damage had already been done. However, trying to get anyone to believe Gunther was Olaf felt as difficult as trying to swim upstream.

“Gunther, your culture is so interesting,” Esmé said. Clearly, there was no use trying to convince her, not just yet anyway, they’d need more proof. “Not like other countries that make me feel guilty and uncomfortable.”

“Jerome, have you noticed anything about Gunther?” Violet asked. Jerome seemed the most likely to listen, particularly now that Esmé was distracted.

“He has a bit of an accent,” he replied.

“Something more suspicious than an accent,” she said. Jerome shook his head.

“Baudelaires, I'm surprised at you! Do you know what _xenophobia_ means?”

“Phobia means _the fear of_ ,” Klaus said. “Like podophobia means _the fear of feet_ , for instance.

“Yes, but xenophobia is the fear of strangers, because they come from different places or happen to eat different foods,” Jerome replied. “I never expected you children to be xenophobic- after all, your parents weren't afraid of anything, least of all foreigners. You should've seen your mother when she fought that eagle- she was a remarkable woman. I just wish that I'd listened to her more.”

“Why did you lose touch?” Violet asked, genuinely curious.

“Oh, there's many factors,” Jerome replied, though he didn’t elaborate on what any of them were.

Klaus

Klaus was pretty sure that he never wanted to eat anything remotely salmon flavoured for the rest of his life. He was so bored, and so fed up, and all he really wanted to do was to get back to the apartment, even if it did mean climbing all those stairs again. He was about to fall asleep at the table when Mrs. Poe came bustling past, still carrying her camera, though thankfully she didn’t seem to be planning on using it.

“Make way for an important reporter!” she said, though there wasn’t anyone in her way. “I just phoned in a hot scoop that will really elevate our readership.”

Klaus frowned, taking in what she had said. _Elevate our readership…_ The phrasing seemed perfectly innocuous, but the more he thought about it… the more _elevate our_ started to sound like _elevator,_ and Klaus was reminded of something he hadn’t really thought about since they had first arrived at the penthouse.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“I said, _Important reporter coming through,_ ” Mrs. Poe said, and walked away.

“You're thinking about something,” Violet said. “Aren’t you?”

“It could be nothing, but it could be everything,” he replied. “Can we get back to 667 Dark Avenue?” he asked their guardians. Maybe that was what it would take to get them all home, just asking outright.

“Not until you get through the entire life cycle of the salmon,” Larry chimed in, placing six more plates down.

“This is, how do I say, the end, il finito, el end de lunch de salmono, please!” Olaf said, tossing down his napkin and standing up.

“Please, sir,” Larry said, trying to guide Olaf back into his seat. “There are more floors, I mean _courses_ , to go.”

“We can't leave now!” Esmé protested. “Eating too much food for too much money is the essence of civilization. Nothing would make me leave this place!”

Just then, Mrs. Poe passed their table again, dropping a newspaper on it, right in front of Esmé. She seemed to be going round passing them to everybody in the restaurant. Esmé looked down at the paper, and let out a scream when she saw the headline.

“Café Salmonella is out! Herring Houdini is in!” she exclaimed.

“Well, isn’t that convenient,” Lizzie whispered.

“Finally!” Olaf said, getting to his feet once again. I'm putting the orphans in doggy bag to take home.”

“What are you talking about? It's time to eat!” Esmé countered, and once again, it seemed like her vanity might save the day.

“After a meal like that…” Jerome began, before trailing off.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” Esmé said, gesturing for them all to stand up. We have to go before anyone else sees us eating in this hole-in-the-wall!” The restaurant was already emptying out into the street, and it seemed inevitable that the six of them would be swept up in the tide. “This place is so out!” Esmé exclaimed, as she joined the crowd.

“This is our chance,” Violet said. “Jerome, that place is fishy,” she said, grabbing their other guardian’s sleeve. “Don't eat or drink anything they give you.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I never want to eat or drink anything fishy again,” Jerome said, before allowing the current of people to sweep him out of the restaurant.

“Come on,” Violet hissed, grabbing Klaus’s sleeve.

She ducked under the table they had been sitting at, tugging Klaus and Sunny with her. The tablecloth reached down to the floor- they were about as well hidden as they could be. More important than that, though, they were out of the crowd of people. Before long, they would be the last people left in Cafe Salmonella, and they would be able to make their way back to the apartment without any interference from Olaf, his henchpeople, or the Squalors. Klaus just hoped that it would be worth it, and that they’d find what- and more importantly who- they were looking for.


	9. Chapter Nine: In Which The Baudelaires Go Down An Elevator Shaft

Chapter Nine: In Which The Baudelaires Go Down An Elevator Shaft 

Violet

“Violet,” Klaus asked, after they had finished climbing the stairs and reached the apartment again. “What do you know about elevators?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” Violet replied, remembering something she hadn’t thought about in a long time. “My friend Ben gave me some elevator blueprints for my birthday a couple years ago, and I studied them very closely.” She wondered what had become of Ben- maybe she’d reach out to him once this was all over. “I remember that an elevator is essentially an enclosed platform, that moves along the vertical axis via an endlessly looped belt and a series of ropes. It’s controlled by a push-button console that regulates an electromagnetic braking system so the transport sequence can be halted an any access point the passenger desires. In other words, it’s a box that moves up or down, depending on where you want to go. Why do you want to know all this, though?”

“What Mrs. Poe said about elevators got me thinking,” he replied. “On every other floor there is one elevator, but here there's two.” He pointed to the second pair of elevator doors.

“There has to be an explanation,” Violet said, walking over to the doors. “Look, there’s a button pointing up- why would you need a button pointing up if you were on the top floor?”

“Wonka?” Sunny speculated, which meant something like, _Maybe it’s a magic elevator, and it can fly?_

“It’s not gonna be a magic elevator, Sunny,” Klaus said. “Maybe this is where Count Olaf hid the Quagmires.”

He reached forward and pressed the up button. The gold doors of the elevator slid open to reveal… nothing.

“There’s nothing here,” Violet said. “There’s no platform, no console, no cables or electromagnetic braking system. There's no elevator at all.”

“The elevator's ersatz,” Klaus said. “It's just a long dark tunnel.”

“Shaft,” Sunny added.

“Duncan and Isadora got kidnapped while trying to help us,” Klaus said, shaking his head. “It's our fault they're gone.”

“It's not,” Violet replied, already pulling out her ribbon.

“It is if we don't rescue them.”

“We will,” she said, and tied up her hair.

They went to the wing where Esmé kept her innest items in order to get their supplies. Violet wanted to construct a small, basic hot air balloon of sorts- that would require a basket, a large piece of cloth and quite a lot of very long rubber bands.

Klaus fetched the bands, Violet grabbed the basket, emptying it of rutabagas, and Sunny found the handkerchief, wearing it like a large red and yellow cape. They met up in the foyer, where they had first met Esmé. It felt like a week had passed since then, though it had only been a matter of hours.

Quickly, Violet started weaving some of the rubber bands together into two ropes. She attached one to each of the handles of the basket, then to two corners of the handkerchief. Klaus passed her supplies as needed, and Sunny sat nearby and gnawed on one of the abandoned rutabagas.

Soon, the invention was ready. Together, they pushed it out of the apartment, and kept pushing it until it was right in front of the elevator. Violet pressed the up button, causing the doors to open and reveal the long, empty shaft. She lifted Sunny into the basket, who still had the rutabaga in one hand and Oliver in the other.

“You nervous?” she asked, as she and Klaus pushed the basket a little closer to the edge.

“I’m anxious,” Klaus replied. “I’m not sure if I’m ready to do this.”

“Me neither- but if we wait until we’re ready, then we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.”

With that, she pushed the basket as close to the edge as she could get it without it falling over altogether, then she and Klaus carefully climbed into it, Violet pulled it the rest of the way and they floated slowly down to the bottom.

They arrived in a room that was very small, very filthy and very, very dark. The only things Violet could make out in the gloom were a large silver cage, and the figures of her two friends, who were huddled inside it.

“Duncan!” Klaus cried, climbing out of the basket.

“Isadora!” Violet cried, joining him.

“Quags!” Sunny cried, poking her head over the top of the basket.

Violet picked her up and set her down on the ground, then all three Baudelaires went over to the cage. Lizzie shifted into a moth and flew through the bars of the cage, then shifted into a cat and curled up with Dorothy, who was in her dog form.

“You found us!” Duncan exclaimed. “I’m so happy to see you!”

Violet smiled, relieved to see that her friends were alive, though she wished she were seeing them in better circumstances. The Quagmires were still dressed in their Prufrock Prep uniforms, though said uniforms were both in a mess, and both of their ties were gone. Duncan’s hair was sticking up all over the place, and Isadora’s long hair was a tangled mess. But worse than all of that, though, was the haunted look in both triplet’s eyes.

“I’ve never been so happy to see anyone,” Isadora said, and Violet wished she could just reach right through the bars of the cage and pull her out. “How did you find us?”

“It was Klaus’s idea,” Violet explained.

“It was Violet's invention,” Klaus added.

“Root!” Sunny added, which meant something like, _I didn’t really have anything to do with it, but I did bring a rutabaga, so you can have that if you want._

“Thanks, Sunny,” Duncan said, reaching a hand through the bar and taking the rutabaga in question. “Violet, do you think you can pick this lock?”

“Not without any tools,” Violet replied. “I wish I could see what’s down here,” she added, after checking her pockets for anything she could use.

“Have you still got the spyglass?” Isadora asked. Klaus nodded. “Pass it here, I’ll show you guys something.” Klaus handed over the spyglass, and Isadora gave the spyglass a few turns. “See, if you line up the markings like this, and you give it a half-turn counter clockwise…” A beam of light came from the end of the spyglass, and she passed it back to Klaus.

“We learned that in The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations,” Duncan explained.

“You found it?” Klaus asked.

“Right before we were kidnapped,” Duncan replied, pulling his dark green notebook from his blazer pocket. “We took as many notes as we could- we may be kidnap victims, but I’m still a journalist.”

“We’ve learned many haunting secrets,” Isadora added.

“About our parents, and your parents too,” Duncan continued. “We were right, everything is connected.”

“Well, what did you learn?” Violet asked, then shook her head. “No, never mind, you can tell us when you’re safe.”

“We heard Olaf’s plan,” Duncan said. “He’ll hide us in an item at the In Auction and sneak us out of the city tomorrow.”

“No, he’s not,” Klaus replied, reaching for Duncan’s hand. “You’re coming with us, right now.”

Violet frowned, giving the spyglass a couple more turns. “I think it’s an electromagnetic circuit- it’s not just light, it’s heat.” She held her hand in front of the light beam, feeling the warmth. “I wonder…”

“The Incomplete History of Secret Organizations said it can be used for all sorts of things,” Isadora said. “Maybe it can melt the lock.”

Violet held the spyglass in front of the lock. The lock started to shake, and it appeared to glow, but other than that nothing of any note happened.

“Is it working?” Duncan asked after a minute.

“No, I think it’s just making the metal hotter.” She sighed. “It’s not gonna work, I can feel it overheating.”

“There must be something else you can use,” Isadora said.

Violet reached into her pocket for her ribbon, before remembering that her hair was already tied back. Shifting the beam of the spyglass to the ground, she picked up a scrap of newspaper that was lying on the floor. Holding the spyglass under it, she let it go, watching as the scrap floated in place.

“Heat rises,” she observed. Klaus frowned at her, looking confused. “We have to go back to the penthouse.”

“You’re leaving?” Isadora asked, gripping the bars tighter.

“Only for a little while, we’re gonna find something to get you out,” Violet replied. “Klaus, gather the handkerchief as tight as you can.”

“I see what you mean, heat rises,” Klaus said, reluctantly letting go of Duncan’s hand and gathering up the handkerchief.

“And so will we,” Violet said.

“Sunny and I should stay here.”

“No, Klaus,” Duncan said. “You should help your sister- just, come back soon.”

“We will,” Klaus said, picking Sunny up and placing her back in the basket. “We promise.”

“No mourners,” Isadora said, holding Shelley close.

“No funerals,” Violet replied, remembering what she’d said when they had parted ways in Prufrock.

Violet and Klaus climbed back into the basket, and Lizzie slipped out of the cage and joined them. Violet held the spyglass under the handkerchief, and the three of them started to rise up out of the tiny room.

“You saved us at Prufrock,” Duncan said. “We’d be in Olaf’s clutches if not for you. So, I'm sure you know.”

“What?” Klaus asked.

“What friends are for,” Duncan replied, just as the basket floated higher, and the cage disappeared out of sight.

Klaus

Klaus hadn’t wanted to leave Duncan alone- or Isadora, for that matter. But if it meant that they could find some way to free them properly, it would have to be worth it.

“Let’s hope we make it to the top before the Squalors and Olaf get home,” he said. Then he frowned- something wasn’t right. “Can you smell smoke?”

“It’s the handkerchief,” Violet said, looking up quickly. “The fabric is burning, the heat is too intense.”

“What do we do?” Klaus asked, grabbing the rim of the basket and resisting the urge to look down.

“I need to moderate the temperature,” she replied. “It has to be hot enough to rise but not so hot that it burns.”

“That sounds very specific.”

“How far from the top are we?”

“Not close enough.” Klaus replied, looking up.

“How far from the bottom are we?” she asked. Klaus was too scared to look down and answer that. “I'm gonna fix this.”

She adjusted the dials on the spyglass, switching it off. For a moment, nothing happened, and then they started to fall. Klaus gripped the basket tighter, barely able to hold in his scream. Violet adjusted the dials again, and they stopped falling.

“If I turn it on and off, it might stabilise,” she explained, continuing to adjust the dials. “If we maintain a consistent heat level, we should make it.”

Klaus nodded, though he didn’t let go of the basket- at least, not until the handkerchief exploded.

Luckily, they were near enough to the top by that point that Violet and Klaus were able to grab onto the bottom of the elevator doorway and pull themselves up. Klaus reached down and lifted up Sunny, who had been hanging on with her teeth, while Violet held onto Prospero, who had been clinging tightly to the shoulder of her suit jacket the whole time they had been in the balloon.

“Well, that could've been a lot worse,” he joked.

Sunny

Sunny wasn’t really sure what they were meant to do now. Of course they’d need to find something so they could bust the Quagmires out of their cage- she had been sort of right, after all, when she’d guessed Olaf would put them in a cage of some sort- but what would they use? And how would they get back down without the basket?

“I saw a circular saw in the penthouse,” Violet said. “We can use it to cut the bars.”

Just then, they heard footsteps coming up the stairs- just one pair. Was it Olaf, coming to get them? Sunny went over to Klaus, hiding behind his legs- though if she had been standing closer to Violet, she’d have hid behind her instead.

“Olaf can’t know we’ve found them,” Violet said, pulling her ribbon out of her hair and pressing the button to close the elevator doors.

Sunny was a little relieved when she poked her head round Klaus’s leg to see that it was only Esmé who had come back to the apartment. Esmé may be annoying and selfish and quite mean, but at least she wasn’t as mean as Olaf. But, wait, where was Jerome, then?

“Jerome!” Violet exclaimed, which was when Sunny noticed that the large black thing Esmé had slung over her shoulder was indeed her husband. Sacchario carried Charlotte by the scruff of her neck, which didn’t look very pleasant for either of them.

“What happened to him?” Klaus asked.

Indeed, Jerome wasn’t really moving, and neither was Charlotte. Maybe Jerome had just fallen asleep- Sunny could understand that, she’d fallen asleep at dinner a couple of times during meals at Prufrock. Maybe Jerome also ran a lot of laps in his free time?

“Nothing to worry about, darlings,” Esmé said, laying Jerome down on the same sofa she’d grumbled about him lying on earlier. “He just collapsed in the middle of dinner, that’s all.”  
  
“ _Collapsed?”_ Violet exclaimed.

“Yes, he just fell sound asleep,” she replied. She calmly tossed her black cloak over Jerome, and turned to the three of them. “You should be asleep too, it’s whatever time it is.”

“Is Gunther here?” Klaus asked.

“Who?” Esmé asked, looking genuinely confused. “Oh, no, no.” She looked around the apartment, and Sunny hoped she wouldn't think to go into the place where they’d collected their inventing materials from.

“Do you smell something?” Sacchario asked, setting Charlotte down on the floor and flapping his wings. “Like… a school librarian sort of smell?”

“Miss Caliban,” Oliver whispered. “Beth was right.”

“Who?” Sunny whispered back.

Both Violet and Klaus had gone over to Jerome, taking care not to step on Charlotte. Nobody was paying either Sunny or Oliver any attention, so this seemed like an opportunity to talk about what Oliver had done earlier, at the restaurant.

“The waiter’s dæmon,” he explained. “She said two people were going to help us, a man and a lady.”

“How Caliban?” she asked, which meant, _How do you know the lady was Miss Caliban?_

“Makes sense,” he replied.

He was right- Mr. Poe had mentioned something about a librarian, and Miss Caliban was the only proper librarian they’d met recently. She was also one of the few people at Prufrock who had actually liked Sunny, her siblings and the Quagmires. But that couldn't have been enough, otherwise she and her friend would've found the elevator shaft too, and surely Duncan and Isadora would've mentioned that?

“Jerome, wake up!” Violet said, gently shaking their guardian’s shoulder.

“Oh, let him rest,” Esmé said. “Sleep is perfectly natural, like cosmetics or frivolous lawsuits.”

“It’s just, we need to tell him something important,” Klaus said.

“You can tell me, I’m important,” Esmé replied, then paused. “And you’re important to me,” she added. “I know I seem like an insanely powerful woman who spends too much time at work and too much money on earrings. But I'm also your guardian- you can tell me anything.”

 _I’ll believe that when I see it,_ Sunny thought, thinking about how even their nicest guardians hadn’t been good for much in the end.

“Well, you might not believe us,” Klaus said.

“Try me.”

So, they did- they sat Esmé down, and started to explain everything they knew to her.

“First things first,” Violet began. “Gunther is Olaf in disguise, his boots are hiding his tattoo and his sunglasses hide his eyebrow.”

“He’s hidden the Quagmires in a cage at the bottom of the elevator,” Klaus continued. “Except, there’s no elevator behind those doors, it’s ersatz.”

“Gesundheit,” Esmé replied. “Go on.”

“He plans to sneak them out of town at the In Auction, by hiding them in one of the items,” Violet went on.

“End,” Sunny concluded, by which she meant, _And also… oh, we’ve sorta come to the end now, haven’t we?_

“This is the least in thing I have ever heard,” Esmé replied. “This is a complicated plot- I’m surprised children like yourselves figured it out. Your bravery and smarts are remarkable.” She stood up, lifting the cover off something that turned out to be a fridge, filled with green bottles. “I need a drink,” she said, pulling out four green bottles and passing them out. “Parsley soda- the Daily Punctilio says it's the innest thing since aqueous martinis. You should all try it.”

“No, thank…” Klaus began.

“Try it,” she insisted. One by one, the children popped the lids off the bottles and took a sip.

“What do you think?” Esmé asked. Sunny thought she wanted a word with whoever decided parsley was a good soda flavour.

“It tastes like parsley,” Klaus said, setting his bottle on the nearby table.

“Isn't it remarkable? I taste the same thing,” Esmé replied, taking another sip of the icky drink.

“Mrs Squalor,” Violet began.

“Esmé,” Esmé corrected. “I know what you’re going to say- there isn’t time to drink savoury beverages, we must end this terrible scheme. Don’t worry, we will have Gunther arrested, and the Quagmires set free. Put down your drinks, quickly, there’s no time to waste, we’ve got to tell the police as quickly as possible.”

She ushered them out of the apartment, one arm around Violet, the other around Klaus. Sunny let Violet pick her up, in anticipation of the long climb back down the stairs. Something didn’t feel right, though, but she wasn’t sure what.

“Luckily, the nearest police station isn’t far away- it’s just too bad we’ve got to take all those stairs again. We could slide down the banister, I suppose, which would be quicker, though less dignified.” She turned Violet and Klaus to face her, and reached for something the children couldn't see. “I know!” she exclaimed. “We’ll take the elevator!”

And then she gave them a hard shove, sending them tumbling down into the darkness below.


	10. Chapter Ten: In Which Sunny Does The Scary Thing First

Chapter Ten: In Which Sunny Does The Scary Thing First

Violet

Violet didn’t know how long they had been falling. She was still holding Sunny, and as they fell, Violet clutched her little sister to her as tightly as she could. Prospero buried himself as deeply as he could in her pocket, and Lizzie and Oliver glided down in bird forms- Lizzie her usual owl, Oliver his sparrow form.

Finally, they landed in a large net. Violet rolled over, letting Sunny crawl out from under her, and reached into her pocket for Prospero, holding him close.

“We’re okay,” Klaus said after a beat. “We’re okay, see, we landed in a net!”

“We’re not okay, Klaus,” Violet countered. “We’re not half okay, we’re not even 1/27th okay. Our friends are still in trouble, and now our guardian has thrown us down an elevator shaft!”

“But we’re alive,” Lizzie pointed out, tilting her head to one side.

“You are alive, Baudelaires, but you are definitely not okay!” called an all too familiar voice from the door of the elevator. Violet looked up, and saw a tall, pale figure that could only be Esmé. “You and the Quagmires are going to be smuggled out of town, and I can guarantee that you orphans will never be okay again!” She paused for a moment, before continuing. “What a wonderful and profitable day! Count Olaf, my former acting coach, will finally get his hands on not one, but two enormous fortunes!”

“Your former acting coach?!” Violet cried. “You mean you knew Gunther's true identity this entire time?”

“Course I did- I’m an actor! I was acting!” Esmé replied. “I just had to fool you three and my dim-witted husband into thinking that he was really an auctioneer!”

“You are our guardian, you’re supposed to be keeping us safe, not throw us down elevator shafts, work with villains and try to steal our fortune!” Violet shouted back. Esmé just laughed at that.

“But I want to steal from you!” she cried. “ _I want to steal from you the way_ _Beatrice stole from me!”_

“What did you say?” Klaus replied, but Esmé didn’t answer him- she just walked away, leaving them alone on the net. “Great, now what do we do?”

Violet rolled over so that her stomach was on the net, and peered through one of the gaps. It was hard to know how far from the bottom of the shaft they were, or if their friends were still down there in the cage.

“I think we should try to get down there somehow, make sure they haven’t been taken away,” she suggested.

“What if they already have been taken away?” Klaus asked. “What if… what if Olaf took them when he set up this net?”

“We won’t know unless we go down,” Violet replied. “We could use this net as a climbing rope.”

“It might not be long enough, or strong enough,” Klaus pointed out.

“Well, if we can’t go down, can we go up?”

“The piping is too small to grip,” Klaus replied, pointing the spyglass’s torch beam towards the piping in question. “Unless you had…”

“Very small hands,” Violet finished, realising that she couldn't see Sunny anywhere. She looked up, gasping when she saw that her baby sister had already started climbing. “Sunny, no!”

“Sunny, it’s too dangerous!” Klaus cried, but Sunny just kept on going, not listening to either of them. “I can’t believe it,” he said eventually.

“That our baby sister is climbing up an elevator shaft all by herself?”

“I can’t believe any of it.”

Sunny

Sunny wasn’t sure how long she had been climbing for, or how much further she had to go. It was probably quite a long way, the door to the elevator did look pretty far away.

“I’m tired,” Oliver grumbled. He’d been flying beside her in his brown bird form for a while now. “My wings are sore.”

Sunny thought if that were the case, he should change forms, so that at least one of them could get a bit of rest. Just like that, he perched on her shoulder, changed into a squirrel and hopped down into her jacket pocket. It was funny how Oliver always seemed to know what she was thinking, what it was she wanted to say. Deep down, she knew that was because they were one and the same, but even so, she didn’t often think about the bond they had, she just took it for granted for the most part.

She kept going, but it was difficult- now that Oliver had admitted to being tired, that had reminded Sunny that she was tired too. She’d never done anything like this before, and she didn’t know how long she’d have to keep doing it.

“Violet could do it,” she reminded herself.

Normally, Sunny didn’t like to remember any part of her time dangling from Olaf’s tower, but she did remember Violet climbing up to try and rescue her- even if it hadn’t worked. In her pocket, Oliver shifted into a hedgehog, and Sunny tried to channel her big sister’s bravery as she carried on climbing.

After a while, Oliver poked his head out of her pocket.

“I wanna see how much further we have to go- I’m gonna fly up there, see how near we are to the top.”

Sunny nodded, and Oliver changed back into a bird again. He hadn’t gotten very far, though, when Sunny felt a painful tug in her chest. She was suddenly aware of just how much her arms hurt from pulling herself up the shaft, and it was difficult to breath. _Come back!_ She thought. _Come back, come back!_

It felt like a very long time before Oliver finally landed on her shoulder and everything was okay again, but in reality it had been less than a minute.

“I didn’t think…” he whispered, shifting into a squirrel so he could better cuddle up against her neck. “I didn’t like that one bit.”

 _Me neither,_ Sunny thought, and finally resumed climbing.

Finally, they reached the top of the shaft. There was one more problem, though- the door was guarded by Olaf’s hook-handed henchman.

Sunny ducked behind one of the large potted plants in the hall, and tried to think about what they should do. If she could get into the apartment, there might be something Violet could use to make a rope, so they could escape too. But how could she do that with Olaf’s henchman in the way?

“Not that one,” Oliver whispered, and Sunny remembered something else about her time in Olaf’s captivity- this was the henchman who’d been in charge of guarding her, whose dæmon had bit Oliver, and who’d been rude to Violet.

Oliver shifted into a mouse, retreating back into her pocket. He was scared, and she couldn't blame him. _I got out, though,_ she reminded herself. _How did I… oh, yeah, the poker game._ So the henchman may be rude and mean, but she had outsmarted him once, and she could do it again.

“No,” she whispered, taking Oliver from her pocket and setting him on her shoulder. “Mama.” She frowned, and tried that again, thinking of a clearer way to say it. “We have to be like Mama.”

Oliver shifted once again, this time into a bat, just like Mama’s dæmon. Of course, Sunny knew that she couldn't _actually_ be like her Mama. Apart from anything else, Mama had been very tall, with black hair, while Sunny was very small, with yellow hair. She had been referring, instead, to Mama’s mantra, “Do the scary thing first, get scared later.” And so, she calmly walked out from behind the plant, and over to the hook-handed man.

“The management regrets it cannot allow any orphans to escape,” he said. His crocodile-dæmon, who was draped around his shoulders, raised her scaly head in what seemed to be mild confusion.

“Peffy,” Sunny replied, by which she meant, _Someday, Olaf’s perfidy will end._

“What does perfidy mean?” the man asked.

“Tetch.” This meant something like, _Treachery, basically._ The man nodded, and leaned down slightly, so he was a little closer to Sunny’s level.

“You know, you’re clever, and you’re good with your teeth. If you play your cards right, you could join our troupe instead of surrendering your fortune and your life in more or less that order.”

Sunny nodded, then quickly ducked past him, through the partly open door and into the apartment.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the man snapped, but it was too late. Sunny folded the doormat in half and shoved it under the door, so he wouldn't be able to open it.

Looking around, Sunny was surprised to see that Olaf and Esmé were nowhere to be seen. Maybe they were in some other part of the apartment, discussing whatever wicked thing they planned to do next. Whatever they were doing, Sunny decided not to question it.

She had to move quickly, though, before the hook-handed man found his way into the apartment and put a stop to her plans. First, she walked over to the curtains, which had a long rope hanging from them. That probably wasn’t doing anything useful, she thought, as she started gnawing her way through it.

Taking the newly severed bit of rope, she threw it over her shoulder, the one Oliver wasn’t perched on, and looked around for anything else that might come in handy. She spied the shiny book Esmé had showed them and hid that inside her jacket. Klaus could do something with that- he was always using books to help them out. Maybe this could be her role now, getting the things her siblings needed to get them out of sticky situations.

Finally, she grabbed the feathery cloak from Jerome, who was still asleep, picked up a bottle of parsley soda from the fridge- it may be icky, but maybe it could be useful- and calmly walked to the door, removed the doormat and opened the door.

“You are in big trouble, young lady!” the hook-handed man declared, once she was out of the apartment. An idea hit her, and she passed him the bottle of soda. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

 _Oh,_ she thought. She hadn’t considered that maybe the man wouldn't be able to open the bottle, that maybe you’d need fingers to do that. She took the bottle back, popped the lid off and offered it again.

“Thanks,” he said. “Oh, no, you’re not bribing your way out of this! How will I explain to the boss why you’re not in that elevator shaft?”

Sunny shrugged, and walked back over to the elevator door. Obviously, she’d get down the shaft the same way she had last time- though hopefully it wouldn't be as scary this time, since she’d know what was at the bottom. She opened her jacket, letting the book fall down first, then tossed down the rope, then, holding onto two corners of the cape with each hand, she jumped down into the shaft.

Klaus

To say that Klaus was surprised when the In Auction catalogue fell down the shaft and landed in between him and Violet was something of an understatement. That being said, he was more than a little relieved when the catalogue was joined by, of all things, a curtain tie-back, then by Sunny, who was using Esmé’s bat cloak as a parachute, and Oliver, who actually was in a bat form.

“Are you alright?” Violet asked, pulling their sister into a hug.

“Yeah,” Sunny replied. “Got supplies.”

“That’s great,” Klaus said, picking up the catalogue. “Now, let’s see if we can find where our friends might be.”

“Have we got time for that?” Violet asked.

“We should, if I go fast,” he replied.

Klaus started flipping through the pages of the catalogue, which showed all the items which would be available at the auction tomorrow. Most items he didn’t give more than a glance, since there was no way they could contain anything, never mind two kidnapped thirteen-year-olds. By the time he found something that looked like a possible option, he’d skipped past, among other things, a postage stamp, a small vase with flowers painted on it and a statue of a red fish.

“I think I found something,” he said, finally, showing his sisters Lot 49, which appeared to be a large cardboard box.

“V.F.D,” Violet said, reading the by now familiar letters which were scrawled on the box. “That’s what the Quagmires said it when they were kidnapped.”

“It must be important,” Klaus said. “My guess is that Olaf is using Lot 49 to smuggle them out of town.”

“What do you think V.F.D could stand for?” Violet asked.

“I wish I knew,” Klaus replied.

“Escape?” Sunny asked, by which she meant, _Alright, now we’ve got this worked out, can we escape this net, please?_

“Of course,” Violet said, tying up her hair and examining the curtain tie-back.

“The Devil’s Tongue knot?” Klaus asked.

“Always,” she replied, and got to work.

With Sunny’s help, a hole was made in the net, and with one end of the rope attached to the vent, they were able to use it to climb down to the bottom of the shaft. Once they reached the bottom, though, they quickly realised that something was very, very wrong. The cage was gone, and the Quagmires were nowhere to be seen.

“They’re gone!” Klaus exclaimed, sinking down to sit on the floor. “We left them alone, and we’ve lost them again!”

“We haven’t lost them yet,” Violet replied. She flashed the beam of the spyglass into the gloom ahead of them, revealing that the tiny room they were in was actually the entrance to a long, dark tunnel. “Let’s go.”

“We don’t know where that goes,” Klaus pointed out.

“But we know where he’s taking them,” Violet countered. “And this might be our best shot of getting there before it’s too late.”

“Fine then, let’s go,” Klaus said, getting to his feet and following his sisters into the passageway.

They walked for a while, in what was so far a straight line. Violet took the lead, and Klaus and Sunny followed close behind.

“Why is there a secret passageway here, do you think?” Klaus asked eventually. “More to the point, do you think Jerome knows?”

“I bet Esmé does,” Violet replied. “And I bet that’s why Count Olaf knows, too.”

“What do you think Esmé meant by-” Klaus began, but Violet cut him off.

“Look at that,” she said, directing the spyglass beam up to the roof of the tunnel.

There was a door in the roof, with that same strange eye that seemed to be everywhere. A ladder led up to the door, and Violet took a couple of steps up it before opening the door a little. A pile of ashes fell down through the gap, getting onto all three of the children. That wasn’t the worst of it, though- they could see something through the gap, a person’s foot, with an all too familiar tattoo on their ankle. Quickly, Violet closed the door.

“That was Olaf,” she said.

“Are you sure?” Klaus asked.

“You saw the tattoo, who else could it be?”

“Maybe the Quagmires are up there,” Klaus said, stepping up onto the ladder and inching the door open slightly.

The coast seemed to be clear now, and he pushed the door open all the way. There was nobody up there- in fact, it was hard to tell what exactly was up there. Klaus climbed up the ladder and out of the passageway, and a few seconds later, his sisters joined him.

They were standing in the middle of a large room- or rather, the burnt remains of one. A broken grand piano stood in one corner, they could see a window seat that had once been covered in cushions… and there were a dozen other little things that pointed to only one thing.

“This… it’s our home,” Violet said. “Why would there be a secret tunnel from an elevator shaft at 667 Dark Avenue… to our home?”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are at the end of The Ersatz Elevator! Not sure when I'll be starting The Vile Village, but hopefully it'll be soon!

Chapter Eleven: In Which The In Auction Goes Ahead

Violet

“Neam?” Sunny asked, looking around the burnt room, by which she meant something like, _What does this mean?_

Violet wished she could answer her little sister’s question. But the truth was, she had no idea how there could possibly be a secret tunnel between their old home and the elevator shaft of 667 Dark Avenue. How many people had known about this tunnel? Had the Squalors known? Had their _parents_ known?

“Our parents couldn't have known about this,” Klaus said, finally. “Right?”

“Tick tock,” Sunny observed, pointing to the remains of the grandfather clock, which had just struck the hour.

“Sunny’s right,” Violet said, wishing they could stay longer. “We’d better hurry- the auction has already started.”

Quickly, they made their way out of the house and onto the street, just as a familiar, mint-green car pulled up beside them.

“Baudelaires?” Mr. Poe asked, poking his head out of the car window. “What are you three doing here, and why are you so dusty?”

Violet decided not to dignify that with a response just now, and climbed into the back of the car, holding the door open for her brother and carrying Sunny.

“There’s no time to explain, you need to give us a ride,” she said.

“I can’t possibly give you a ride,” Mr. Poe replied. “I’m running late to the In Auction!”

“That’s where we need to go,” Klaus explained.

“I don’t know, dear,” Mrs. Poe said from her seat beside her husband. “It says here that the auction is invitation only!”

“Oh no, it’s a charitable function, so let’s be charitable,” Poe replied. “I’ll try to get you in as my guests.”

Klaus

The doors of Veblen Hall were famous- it had once won the prestigious annual Door Prize. But when the Baudelaires and the Poes approached it, those famous doors were thrown wide open, and it was a little hard to see what it was about the door that had made it so famous from this angle.

As they approached the hall, Klaus wasn’t sure what would await them inside- he just hoped that whatever it was, it would lead to Duncan and Isadora being rescued.

“We need to bid on an item,” he told Mr. Poe.

“Oh, I don’t think so, Klaus- I’m glad you're showing interest in activities of the upper-middle class, but I can't condone spending large sums of money on frivolous items.”

“Look, dear, a wooden spoon with googly eyes!” Mrs. Poe said, pointing to a page in the catalogue.

“We'll bid high!” Mr. Poe replied, and the two of them entered the hall.

Klaus and his sisters stepped forward to follow them, but they were stopped in their tracks by Olaf’s bald henchman.

“Hold it, you’re not on the list!” he snapped, glaring down at the children.

“Count Olaf wants us captured, right?” Violet said, glaring right back. “If you let us in, that’s like capturing us.”

“I need to think about this,” he replied.

The children took that opportunity to duck past him and walked into the auction hall. Olaf stood on the stage behind a dark grey lectern, Esmé standing just behind him. A large red fish statue was in the middle of the stage, with one of the white-faced women standing at either end, and three large posters hung at the back of the stage- one with Olaf’s face on it, one with Esmé’s face, and one with the words “In Auction.”

“I hear eight and a half,” Olaf called, as the children slid into seats beside the Poes. “Eight and a half from Mr. Fellini!”

“I’d like to bid on that red herring for Herring Houdini, where I work,” a voice from the other side of the room spoke up.

Klaus turned in the direction of the voice, and was a little surprised to see that the speaker appeared to be Olaf’s dark-haired henchperson. They were wearing a large hat, so it was a little hard to tell, but their small nuthatch-dæmon was unmistakeable. _What was going on there?_ he wondered.

“Sold! To restaurant person for unknown amount to be paid later!” Olaf replied. “Next item is Lot 48. A vase adorned with flower things. Very fragile, very in.”

“I bid 20!” one of the audience members shouted. Olaf tossed the vase over to them, which they only just managed to catch.

Violet

“We proceed as normal, please, to the crying of Lot 49!” Olaf announced, once he’d sold the vase.

Violet allowed herself a small smile- they still had time to save their friends, it wasn’t too late.

“Lot 49,” she whispered. “That’s VFD- we’ve still got time.” She turned to Mr. Poe. “Can we use our fortune to bid on this item?”

“Your parents' will has no provision for public sales,” he replied.

“Can't you bid on it for us?” Klaus asked. “Our friends' lives depend on it.”

“You shouldn't use hyperbole, Klaus,” Mr. Poe replied. “But I suppose that I could make a modest bid- I did receive that promotion.” He looked down at the catalogue. “What in the world is VFD?”

“V.F.D, of course, needs no introduction, as is known all over the world in countries that are foreign and not so foreign,” Olaf began, gesturing to the large cardboard box that the white-faced women had wheeled onto the stage. “As you see, is prime specimen, this V.F.D. Very large with a few air holes poked in the top at the last minute. Ladies, please turn the box around on all sides so everyone can see all of the angles.” He paused to allow his henchwomen to turn the box a bit, before continuing. “What is first bid, please?”

“I bid twenty,” Poe began.

“Fifty!” someone else from the audience countered.

“Fifty-five!”

“We have a bid of 55 from unhelpful banker!” Olaf said, pointing his gavel in Mr. Poe’s direction.

“Sixty!” This one came from Mrs. Poe.

“You're bidding against me?” Mr. Poe asked.

“It'd look nice in the powder room,” she replied, with a shrug. The bidding kept going, until it reached ninety.

“Oh, goodness, this is getting expensive,” Mr.Poe said. “Are you sure you want it?”

“Please, Mr. Poe,” Violet pleaded.

“Very well, then. One hundred- and that's my final offer!”

For a moment, the hall was quiet. Then Olaf nodded in the direction of his henchperson, who raised their paddle.

“112,” they said.

“113,” Violet countered.

“119.”

“121.”

“120.”

“Darling, 120 is less than 121,” Esmé snapped, shaking her head.

“It is?” the henchperson asked.

“Yes!”

“Okay, sorry. I bid 200. What do I care? It's not my money.”

“I'm sorry, but I cannot let you bid any higher- I don't want to spoil you.” Mr. Poe said, turning to the Baudelaires.

“Let someone else have a turn,” Mrs. Poe added.

“I have bid of 200, please, from someone who will be yelled at later. Pack it up and take it away, please!” Olaf declared.

“Not so fast!” declared a familiar voice from the back of the room. Violet turned, allowing another smile when she saw that it was Jerome. “Sorry I’m late, everyone, I simply could not get off the sofa- it must have been something I ate!” He looked pointedly in Esmé’s direction. “I am Jerome Squalor, and I am proudly a legal guardian of Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire. In the short time they have been under my care, I have been impressed with their intelligence, their fortitude and their charm. At least in the hours while I was awake. They're noble children, like their parents. Therefore, if they're interested in a cardboard box with air holes in it, I'm going to make sure they get it!” He paused for dramatic effect. “204!”

“Jerome, love of my life, don’t be an idiot, you don’t know what is going on,” Esmé said. “205!”

“Esmé, love of my life, I am tired of being treated this way!” Jerome replied. “206!”

“Well, maybe I’m tired of you!” Esmé snapped. “207!”

“Maybe I’m tired of both of you!” one of the audience members cried. “208!”

The bidding kept escalating from there, the adults going back and forth calling out numbers and arguing. Violet was about to just run up to the stage and grab the stupid box, when Sunny climbed up onto her chair and said something that made everyone shut up.

Sunny

_So this was an auction,_ Sunny thought, looking around the hall. She was decidedly unimpressed- it was just grown-ups shouting numbers at each other.

It seemed that whoever could say the biggest number would get to keep whatever the item was- so if they wanted to get the V.F.D box and rescue their friends, Sunny or her siblings would have to say the biggest number they could think of, and as Sunny stood up on her chair, she decided to do exactly that.

“Mille!” she cried.

“What did she say?” asked the grown-ups, turning to look at her.

“She said one thousand!” Violet replied.

Sunny sat down, hoping that this was a big enough number. It certainly seemed like a big number, and everyone else seemed to think so too.

“Where did Sunny get that kind of money?” Jerome asked.

“She was a receptionist in boarding school, but I had no idea her salary was that high,” Mr. Poe replied.

“The bid is one thousand, please,” Olaf declared. “Let the little baby give the big money to the pretty lady, and the auction is over.”

Wait- you had to actually pay for the stuff in auctions? It wasn’t just about saying the biggest number? Sunny barely understood what money was, never mind how she was meant to get one thousand of it.

“We probably should’ve thought this through,” Oliver whispered, as Sunny climbed down from her chair and walked over to where her siblings were now standing on the stage.

They were trying to open the box now. Sunny sat on the edge of the stage, ready in case there was anything she could do to help out.

“You can’t open this box until you give me the money, that’s illegal!” Esmé pointed out.

“What’s illegal is auctioning off children!” Violet countered.

“Not everywhere,” Esmé replied.

"Soon the room will see that you’ve broken the law, and that our friends are in this box!” Klaus snapped.

Sunny stood up then, and bit into the box. Between her biting and her siblings’ tugging, the box finally burst open- although none of them were fully prepared for what they’d find on the inside.

Klaus

Doilies rained down on the stage. Klaus blinked, not quite believing what he was seeing- not quite sure he _wanted_ to believe what he was seeing.

“ _Doilies?”_ he asked, staring incredulously at his surrounding.

“Of course!” Jerome exclaimed. “ _Very fancy doilies_ , what else could V.F.D stand for?” One of the doilies had landed on Charlotte’s head, and she seemed to have just accepted the fact it was there- she wasn’t trying to shake it off.

“Yes,” Olaf said. “What in the world, please, could V.F.D stand for, dusty orphans?”

“Someone put these children in a long black automobile, they’re dirty and their clothes are frayed,” Esmé added.

Klaus looked down, just in time to see that Sunny had managed to gnaw through the laces of one of Olaf’s black boots.

“So are his!” he pointed out, gesturing to the shoe, which was coming undone.

“Frayed?” Olaf countered. “I’m a _fraid not!”_

Just then, he slipped on one of the many doilies that now littered the stage, and his boot flew off, exposing his foot to everyone.

“Here we go again,” Lizzie muttered, as they began the same routine they had by now grown used to. Olaf was exposed, now he’d try to talk his way out of it, and eventually he’d give up and run away, escaping before anyone could catch him.

“He has a tattoo of an eye on his ankle!” Jerome cried.

“He’s not Gunther!” Mr. Poe added. “He’s not a foreigner at all! Arrest this man at once!”

“Wait until the readers of the Daily Punctilio read about this!” Mrs. Poe chimed in, pulling her camera out of her handbag.

“Wait, wait, just calm down, everyone!” Esmé declared. “Don’t blame foreigners for your problems!”

“He’s not a foreigner!” Jerome protested. “He’s from the same country as we’re in right now!”

“Well, that’s no reason to arrest someone,” Sacchario countered, flapping his wings indignantly.

“He’s a horrible criminal, that’s reason enough!” Klaus snapped.

“Klaus is right! He's the subject of a citywide manhunt! He's a source of pain and suffering, not to mention hours of negotiations at Mulctuary Money Management.” Mr. Poe said.

“Wait!” Esmé spoke up. “Before you rush to judgment, there's something I need to share.” She paused, waiting until she had their attention, before continuing. “All my life, I've climbed the ladder of success armed only with ruthless ambition and a large inheritance. I've paid my dues for weeks to become the city's sixth most important financial advisor, to become this statuesque powerhouse that stands gorgeously before you. I had the whole world at my remarkably small feet. And yet…” she paused again, holding up a finger. “I had a feeling there was something missing. It wasn't until I opened my home to three orphans that I realized just exactly what it was.”

The audience seemed to be buying into her speech- there were a few “Awws,” and Klaus even saw one person wipe their eyes. And then she continued, and that went away.

“It was Count Olaf! He's a genius! He's a wonderful acting coach! He's back in my life after many lonely and successful years, helping me pursue single-minded, cold-hearted, perhaps slightly overzealous revenge- my boyfriend, Count Olaf. The handsomest, innest man in town.”

“How could you say something like that?” Jerome asked, Charlotte leaping up into his arms and glaring at Sacchario. “You’re my wife! And besides, ruthless kidnappers aren’t in!”

“How right you are!” Olaf replied, finally ditching his ridiculous accent. “We’re not in- we’re out! Out of the city, that is! Come on, Esmé!”

With that, he lifted up a trap door in the floor of the stage, and he and Esmé hopped into it, closing it behind them. Klaus ran over to it, trying to lift it up, but it wouldn’t budge. Even when Violet came over to help, it stayed firmly shut. Olaf must’ve jammed it shut somehow.

“Where did he go?” Poe asked. “We can’t let that despicable man escape for a sixth time!” It was too late, though- they were already gone.

“They still have our friends,” Violet said, as they walked off the stage and climbed down.

“But I was so sure the Quagmires would be in that box,” Klaus replied, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

“I guess that wasn’t his plan,” Violet replied. “It was a red herring.”

The two older Baudelaires shared a look then, remembering the item that had been getting bid on when they’d first entered Veblen Hall.

“Red herring!” they said at the same time.

Violet picked up Sunny, and together, the three siblings ran out of the hall and onto the street outside. They were too late, though, yet again. Olaf’s long black car pulled away from the hall and tore down the street- this time with a large, red statue of a fish strapped to the roof.

Violet

“Duncan!” Klaus shouted, as Olaf’s car disappeared. “Duncan!”

It was too late, though, and all Violet could do was stare at the space where the car had been, fighting the same feeling of inadequacy she’d been fighting ever since their friends had been taken in the first place.

“Baudelaires!” Jerome called, and the children turned to face their guardian. “Baudelaires, it’s not safe for you to chase a dangerous villain- or her boyfriend.”

“We need to rescue our friends,” Violet replied.

“Let the authorities deal with that- it is a citywide manhunt, after all.”

“Olaf was here and the authorities didn’t notice!” Klaus pointed out. “And you didn’t recognise Olaf until it was too late, either.”

“But I’m awake now, from Esmé’s treachery and after a very long nap, and I'm still your guardian. And from now on, I promise you can forget all about Count Olaf.”

“We'll never forget about him,” Violet countered. “We'll never forget our friends, not until we rescue them.”

“And find the truth about the tunnel between your elevator and our house,” Klaus added.

“Look, you three are in far too much danger. I know that you’re worried about your friends, but let other people track down Count Olaf. Let me keep you safe.

“Nowhere is safe with Olaf at large,” Violet replied. “We’ll never be happy if our friends are in danger- we’re going to find them.”

“You can help us,” Klaus added.

“Benedict!” Sunny chipped in, which meant something like, _Yeah- if you really want to look after us, why don’t you actually help us out?_

“I wish I had your courage. Your mother always said I wasn't brave enough, and I guess she was right. She was also right about Esmé, who only married me for my underground tunnel. I wish you luck.” He rested a hand on Klaus’s shoulder. “I think you're going to need it.”

He walked away, then, Charlotte following at his heels- though she turned back one last time to look at the children, her tail waving a sad goodbye.

“Where did Mr. Squalor go?” Mr. Poe asked, emerging from the hall.

“It doesn’t matter,” Violet said. “I don’t think he wants to be our guardian any more.”

 _Nobody ever does,_ she thought, bitterly. _And even when they do, they just end up dying anyway._

“Well, normally, that would be cause for alarm,” Mr. Poe replied. “However, we at Mulctuary Money Management are exploring numerous guardian options after an uptick in mysterious fires destroying people's homes. There's a town far, far from here offering to care for our orphaned clientele. A town with a name that I find both curious and somewhat familiar, VFD. What do you think?”

“Yes,” Violet said, before she could take too long to think about it.

They could not have two false alarm V.F.Ds in a row- this one had to mean something. Whether it would lead them to their friends, the mystery they had revealed while they were being taken away back in Prufrock, or both, it had to be worth a look. They’d go to V.F.D, and finally uncover its mystery. After all- it was extremely unlikely that they’d get two red herrings back to back, wasn’t it?


End file.
